Dear Loyal Readers of Half What,
This weblog is officially defunct.
Goodbye!
XO,
LeeAnn
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Friday, August 08, 2008
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Annual Call for Bone-throwing?
Yes, it has occurred to me that the fact that I have time to compose blog posts that long means that I don't have enough to do. (It's true.)
It also occurs to me that blogs with a set theme (Taiwanese politics, Ultimate, food porn, etc.) are usually more fun to read and that if I perhaps set myself to some purpose it might better keep me from sharing too much about my personal life.
I also realize that I usually post to this as if I am posting to an audience, but an audience of no one I know, which is entirely false. (In fact, I can think of only two people who might be struck to check this blog on a semi-regular basis, and they know me quite well.)
And of course the last thought is that Halfwhat's hit another wall whereat there's too much of my beans spilled on the wall and Jen, Lindsey, and Juli have once again lost their appendages to gangrene, margaritas, and flesh-eating bacteri. Sad.
It also occurs to me that blogs with a set theme (Taiwanese politics, Ultimate, food porn, etc.) are usually more fun to read and that if I perhaps set myself to some purpose it might better keep me from sharing too much about my personal life.
I also realize that I usually post to this as if I am posting to an audience, but an audience of no one I know, which is entirely false. (In fact, I can think of only two people who might be struck to check this blog on a semi-regular basis, and they know me quite well.)
And of course the last thought is that Halfwhat's hit another wall whereat there's too much of my beans spilled on the wall and Jen, Lindsey, and Juli have once again lost their appendages to gangrene, margaritas, and flesh-eating bacteri. Sad.
Thank you for smoking (and not expecting a scolding).
I have a friend who picked up smoking in college and now is unable to quit. Two weekends ago, when he lit up, he asked if I didn't mind and if I'd like one also, and when I gracefully declined said, "Oh, come on! You know you want one." And I said, Well, no, thanks, but no, not right now. Later in the evening, the good-natured nudge turned into a kind of begging, "Oh, come on. Don't make me smoke out here alone." At the end of the night, as I came back from the restroom and he was on his sixth cigarette in the hall outside our group's KTV bao xiang, he offered and I declined again, and he said finally, "If you don't like it, why don't you tell me to stop?"
I could barely help rolling my eyes. He has plenty of friends, mostly girls, who repeatedly implore him to stop: "Mike, don't smoke!" They say it so often that it's now a running gag and he always makes a point of lighting up with a smile after they say it. I told him, "It's your choice to smoke. I'm not judging you for it."
And he said, "But smoking is one of those things, you want people to tell you to stop because then you know that they care about you."
At the time, I shot right back, almost annoyed, but laughed to take the edge off, "I can care about you and not tell you what to do. This is a life choice you're making, and you know what it does to you. I could tell you not to do a million things that supposedly kill you, but that doesn't have anything to do with whether or not I care about you."
I still believe this, but I wonder if it's indicative of some kind of callousness on my part. Sometimes, my mother tells me that I ought to tell this friend or that friend that they're great but oh, they should get braces, or lose weight, or something or another that she thinks they could work on. Then she says, "Oh, I guess you can't say that; American friends don't do that, do they? Americans are only allowed to worry about themselves. They can't say what they mean; it's not polite, is it, to tell your friends those things? Even if it's in their best interest! But really, he should get braces...he's such a nice boy. Tell him I said so." I never really say anything in reply, usually, when she accuses me of being an American without the heart to tell it like it is or help my friends improve; but I think the point is less that I am keeping judgments to myself and more that I just don't make those judgments. I'd like to think that I am the type to help friends when I can, but is it really an unfeeling "American" philosophy to "respect" others' judgment at the expense of, maybe, actively helping them improve? Or is it that I just don't think most of those things are problems people should rectify--crooked teeth, being overweight, smoking, and whatever else? I've never thought it had anything to do with culture, but that's mostly because I have a hard time teasing out my Asian cultural influences from my American ones and like to think of all of my tendencies as my own special tendencies. I've come to realize that that can be a bit naive.
--
As an aside, I almost typed, "It made me wonder..." and that reminds me that there is a TV show in Taiwan called "I love beauty" (我愛美麗) whose opening is an unabashed copy of the Sex and the City opening credits, complete with scenes of Taipei, a bus, a big puddle, and a tutu included.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Notes from Taiwan, vol. III
It appears that I'm too soft for academia. Or maybe I just shouldn't listen to Cat Power while researching.
Reading about, writing about, and talking about politics and history is much more emotionally taxing than I thought it would be-- I've got friends interviewing recovering heroin addicts for their theses and telling me how harrowing their stories can be, but I'm feeling a little more than distressed myself just reading about the political and ideological tussles (past and present) that have been going on for the last hundred or so years over my favorite North Pacific island. One can't help but feel that one's unborn thesis will just be another useless pile of junk to be added to the Great China-Taiwan Cross-Strait Debate.
--
In lieu of having an available adviser to suggest potential avenues of inquiry or new resources, I've stumbled upon a curious and largely Caucasian community of academics and Sinophiles (is this derogatory?)--foreign bloggers living in Taiwan and writing political commentary on the issues of the day and, from those newer to life in Asia, the funny things they've eaten since arriving. They've all read up on their Chinese, Japanese, and general East Asian history, and some of them have lived in Asia much longer than I have. Their posts (on issues, for instance, like the mess at CKS), often draw impassioned comments in broken English from native Chinese and Taiwanese. These folks often end up battling each other fiercely while the Academic Sinophiles periodically insert their factual bits to calm the waters and remind everyone to be civil (smiley face smiley face wink ~~ I hate emoticons). Case in point: a post on the DPP's name rectification movement by Roy Berman (alias Mutantfrong), evidently a scholar studying in Japan who once lived in Taiwan. Reading the comment war that follows makes me cringe, realizing that these are truly arguments that people have every day; it also makes me think of all those videos of Taiwanese legislators throwing fists in parliament sessions. (YouTube it if you're curious. "Taiwanese legislators fighting" will do. These videos also come with strings of sad and entertaining comments.)
(Oh, and I'm not actually using blogs in the place of research. Really.)
--
On a slightly related note, another thing one finds a lot in blogs and opinion columns are revelations about the Asian American woman's identity crisis: the one in which they realize that for all practical purposes, they are not American-looking, and will always fall into those good old-fashioned Oriental aesthetic stereotypes--almond eyes, petite frames, high cheekbones. My revelation this time around is not really about being or becoming someone's Asian fetish, although recently, a Google sponsored link assured me that there are good people out there actively making sure that everyone's Asian fetishes and green card needs are being satisfied--that URL was under the link "Taiwanese penpals wanted."
What I was surprised by this time was that I often smile at non-Asian people when passing them in the street. It's a habit I have in America with everyone, but I do it here because of a few faulty assumptions: a) I assume that if they're not Asian, they're American, or otherwise, speak English; b) I assume that if they're American, or speak English, they will recognize this as a familiar and friendly gesture; c) I assume they would welcome a friendly gesture from a fellow American or English-speaking person, especially if they look particularly lost or concerned; of course, that all depends on d) I assume that I look "American." But, oh wait, I don't, so the big revelation is that maybe all those foreigners have thought I was trying to subtly hit on them. Can one do this just with a glance?
---
And on the Ultimate side, World Ultimate competition is going on right now, without my participation, of course. I hope those basketball-playing Taiwanese girls are doing alright, but to be honest and selfish, I hope even more that Michael Hu and his friends are regretting not taking another female player (cue my shaking fist). Renegade Province has begun its training for the Singapore Open in earnest though, and in some strange turn of events, I find myself again in the place of a reluctant handler. They tell me most mixed teams round these parts like to have a female back, but I haven't found this to be the case necessarily in American mixed, so I don't really know what the reasoning is.
The boys out here (as, perhaps, with certain Cantabrigian mixed teams) must sometimes be reminded that they should respect their female players for what they can do. In the interest of such reminding, I embarrassed the heck out of one of my friends last Sunday. He is about 1 foot and some inches taller than I am and so thought he could play arrogant by poaching, marking lazy, and trying to throw an easy break around my head. I responded by scoring deep, throwing a backhand break for the assist, and kickblocking the crap out of him, respectively. He took it well, I think.
Reading about, writing about, and talking about politics and history is much more emotionally taxing than I thought it would be-- I've got friends interviewing recovering heroin addicts for their theses and telling me how harrowing their stories can be, but I'm feeling a little more than distressed myself just reading about the political and ideological tussles (past and present) that have been going on for the last hundred or so years over my favorite North Pacific island. One can't help but feel that one's unborn thesis will just be another useless pile of junk to be added to the Great China-Taiwan Cross-Strait Debate.
--
In lieu of having an available adviser to suggest potential avenues of inquiry or new resources, I've stumbled upon a curious and largely Caucasian community of academics and Sinophiles (is this derogatory?)--foreign bloggers living in Taiwan and writing political commentary on the issues of the day and, from those newer to life in Asia, the funny things they've eaten since arriving. They've all read up on their Chinese, Japanese, and general East Asian history, and some of them have lived in Asia much longer than I have. Their posts (on issues, for instance, like the mess at CKS), often draw impassioned comments in broken English from native Chinese and Taiwanese. These folks often end up battling each other fiercely while the Academic Sinophiles periodically insert their factual bits to calm the waters and remind everyone to be civil (smiley face smiley face wink ~~ I hate emoticons). Case in point: a post on the DPP's name rectification movement by Roy Berman (alias Mutantfrong), evidently a scholar studying in Japan who once lived in Taiwan. Reading the comment war that follows makes me cringe, realizing that these are truly arguments that people have every day; it also makes me think of all those videos of Taiwanese legislators throwing fists in parliament sessions. (YouTube it if you're curious. "Taiwanese legislators fighting" will do. These videos also come with strings of sad and entertaining comments.)
(Oh, and I'm not actually using blogs in the place of research. Really.)
--
On a slightly related note, another thing one finds a lot in blogs and opinion columns are revelations about the Asian American woman's identity crisis: the one in which they realize that for all practical purposes, they are not American-looking, and will always fall into those good old-fashioned Oriental aesthetic stereotypes--almond eyes, petite frames, high cheekbones. My revelation this time around is not really about being or becoming someone's Asian fetish, although recently, a Google sponsored link assured me that there are good people out there actively making sure that everyone's Asian fetishes and green card needs are being satisfied--that URL was under the link "Taiwanese penpals wanted."
What I was surprised by this time was that I often smile at non-Asian people when passing them in the street. It's a habit I have in America with everyone, but I do it here because of a few faulty assumptions: a) I assume that if they're not Asian, they're American, or otherwise, speak English; b) I assume that if they're American, or speak English, they will recognize this as a familiar and friendly gesture; c) I assume they would welcome a friendly gesture from a fellow American or English-speaking person, especially if they look particularly lost or concerned; of course, that all depends on d) I assume that I look "American." But, oh wait, I don't, so the big revelation is that maybe all those foreigners have thought I was trying to subtly hit on them. Can one do this just with a glance?
---
And on the Ultimate side, World Ultimate competition is going on right now, without my participation, of course. I hope those basketball-playing Taiwanese girls are doing alright, but to be honest and selfish, I hope even more that Michael Hu and his friends are regretting not taking another female player (cue my shaking fist). Renegade Province has begun its training for the Singapore Open in earnest though, and in some strange turn of events, I find myself again in the place of a reluctant handler. They tell me most mixed teams round these parts like to have a female back, but I haven't found this to be the case necessarily in American mixed, so I don't really know what the reasoning is.
The boys out here (as, perhaps, with certain Cantabrigian mixed teams) must sometimes be reminded that they should respect their female players for what they can do. In the interest of such reminding, I embarrassed the heck out of one of my friends last Sunday. He is about 1 foot and some inches taller than I am and so thought he could play arrogant by poaching, marking lazy, and trying to throw an easy break around my head. I responded by scoring deep, throwing a backhand break for the assist, and kickblocking the crap out of him, respectively. He took it well, I think.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Note
Air conditioning + caffeine + wifi + table + chair = Productivity
At the moment,
Starbucks = Air conditioning + caffeine + wifi + table + chair.
C'est la vie.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
A few notes
- Weather: Hot, humid, and full of thunderstorms and cicadas.
- Another Facebook success story: Posted my Taiwan cell phone number on Facebook and the next morning a friend from high school called me up and we had lunch. We haven't talked since he graduated from Torrey Pines four years ago and caught up on life, love, work, and school as if we'd been pals for years. We weren't even close to close in high school, but we acknowledged things frankly and I realized that the twenty-somethings and the years preceding them really level out all sorts of social inequities. Later that evening we went out with some of his friends--workerbees from McKinsey, Morgan Stanley, and Imperial Tobacco, ah, the young professionals scene. My friend Mr. Wu, once unabashedly introverted, a history buff with a penchant for trivia, tennis, and not much else as far as I could tell, has learned to entertain and be entertained, to smoke "socially" and pretend that he is not addicted, to party hard from Friday till the wee hours of Monday before his flight out at 7 am to HK, Singapore, Beijing, Korea... and, of course, to make sure a girl gets home safely at the end of the evening. Never mind that he dreads waking up in the morning and looks forward mostly to the cigarette at the end of the workday--I think he'll come out of the funk soon.
- Academia: Today is gallery day. With my three maps in purse (one of the Taipei Metro Rapid Transit system, one detailed map of the business district of Taipei, and one map of art galleries), a camera, a steno, and as much courage and street smarts as I can muster, I'm going to try to visit every art gallery in Taipei. Next week, I meet with a professor and some of his graduate students at the Institute for Taiwan History of the Academica Sinica. I will have to figure out how to speak in Chinese about my topic before then. I have a friend here who had a year at Tulane before Katrina hit, and he's just finished his exams so we're going to climb mountains, climb walls (there is bouldering here!), shoot arrows, and, perhaps, navigate the bowels of Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall.
- And of course, the Ultimate report: Have opportunities to play a tournament in Singapore at the end of August and possibly Vancouver (for the World Flying Disc Federation's Championships, representing Chinese Taipei) at the beginning of August. Of course, I have a habit of getting far too excited about eggs in Ultimate baskets that never seem to hatch, so I am just holding my breath, keeping my fingers crossed, and maybe trying to get some research done in the meantime.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
You look different (A Dialogue)
"You're so tan!" -- Ni sai hei le.
"Oh, I know!" Embarrassed hands covering cheeks. -- Dui, dui.
"Are you more... muscular?" -- Hao xiang bi jiao...zhuang yi dian.
"Do you mean have I gained weight?" -- Ni shi shuo wo pang le ma?
"Well, I was trying to be polite." -- Wo shi hao qi yi dian de shuo.
"Oh, I know!" Embarrassed hands covering cheeks. -- Dui, dui.
"Are you more... muscular?" -- Hao xiang bi jiao...zhuang yi dian.
"Do you mean have I gained weight?" -- Ni shi shuo wo pang le ma?
"Well, I was trying to be polite." -- Wo shi hao qi yi dian de shuo.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Huge!
The oral surgeon looked at my x-rays today and said,
"And here we see that your two upper teeth are halfway erupted, and here... well, you see up here above the jaw are your sinuses, and goodness, they're huge! I mean, for a woman your age, and... your size, well, still, they are enormous!"
I wasn't sure how to feel about that.
Note: Those aren't my x-rays, or my sinuses.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
#$@$!
A little over a year ago, I posted an entry calling for suggestions for an all-purpose expletive replacement. I needed something to eradicate customary curse words from my vocabulary, especially to temper my on-field reactions--I think a week or so before writing the entry, I was feeling silly after causing a stoppage of play because I had yelled "f*ck!" loudly after laying out for and missing a goal, and everyone thought I had called a foul.
Since then, I have appropriated "woof" as an all-purpose expression of frustration, of "oh darn," and of general resignation. I sometimes forget to explain this to people and they wonder why I bark when a goal is dropped or I miss an appointment, but I find that in conversation, context lends the sound its proper meaning. It is mild but fulfills my need for expressing a wide range of negative emotions, and I hadn't realized until this past weekend how thoroughly I had cleansed my palate of curse words--until a bunch of 30-year-old men reminded me of just how un-genteel they sound and of all the reasons why I might not want to keep playing Ultimate after college.
I picked up with a random team this past weekend for Mixed Easterns, a 4/3 (that's men/women ratio) co-ed tournament in Devens, MA, about an hour north and west of Cambridge. I thought it was about time I started stepping out of my comfort zone of playing with only Harvard folks -- my current undergraduate friends and all the friendly alums -- and I thought Mixed would be a fun way to ease into it. (The elite women's teams still intimidate the daylights out of me.) I was pretty optimistic about it; the team seemed really fun and witty and helpful in e-mails, and I was pretty sure I already liked them.
Unfortunately, I forgot that there exists a subset of people in the Ultimate community, the folks several-years married and approaching 10 and 15-year college reunions; the folks who are not quite as athletic as they may have been in their prime, but more than overcompensate with their lust for competition; the folks who run teams like the one I played with last weekend. I forgot that I cannot stand these people, at least not on the field; and it's much harder to be forgiving of people you don't really know.
The tournament began at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday morning--it was already 80 degrees and the day would easily reach 100 over the next five rounds of play before culminating in a 20-minute thunderstorm replete with lightning, fire department warnings to leave the field, and a full rainbow. But what was worse than the steadily rising heat were the captains' and returners' steadily rising tempers...
"That was just f-cking lazy!"
"Play some f-cking defense! Be f-cking on their f-cking hip!"
"This is f-cking unacceptable!"
"F-ck!" "F-ck!" "F-ck!"
Even calling time outs, one of the guys felt the need throw down the disc and yell "TIME!" as if he were yelling "F-CK!" They argued calls. They threw water bottles. They made audible and mean jokes about the opposing team. I know they didn't always mean to sound angry or be assholes, but just listening to them talk that way drove me nuts. All they had to say were negative things, and really, they weren't good enough to justify it all. That, and they played a conservative game that meant looking off deep (and wide open!) cuts by pickups (yes, like me) .
I didn't go back on Sunday; it was against many principles I used to hold dear (persevering through unpleasant situations, especially physical ones; never saying no; not holding people's personalities against them) and I felt terrible about leaving the women with one less sub, but the prospect of playing another day with those men on a dubious ankle just didn't sit well with me. I decided that I play Ultimate to have fun and that Saturday was certainly not fun.
That night I had a nightmare that I cursed at Quasar on the field, and I was so scared when I woke up that I had actually done it. I am not sure when I simultaneously became such a softie and such a judgmental soul, but really. You don't curse at your team. You don't curse at people. End of story. Thanks for listening.
Since then, I have appropriated "woof" as an all-purpose expression of frustration, of "oh darn," and of general resignation. I sometimes forget to explain this to people and they wonder why I bark when a goal is dropped or I miss an appointment, but I find that in conversation, context lends the sound its proper meaning. It is mild but fulfills my need for expressing a wide range of negative emotions, and I hadn't realized until this past weekend how thoroughly I had cleansed my palate of curse words--until a bunch of 30-year-old men reminded me of just how un-genteel they sound and of all the reasons why I might not want to keep playing Ultimate after college.
I picked up with a random team this past weekend for Mixed Easterns, a 4/3 (that's men/women ratio) co-ed tournament in Devens, MA, about an hour north and west of Cambridge. I thought it was about time I started stepping out of my comfort zone of playing with only Harvard folks -- my current undergraduate friends and all the friendly alums -- and I thought Mixed would be a fun way to ease into it. (The elite women's teams still intimidate the daylights out of me.) I was pretty optimistic about it; the team seemed really fun and witty and helpful in e-mails, and I was pretty sure I already liked them.
Unfortunately, I forgot that there exists a subset of people in the Ultimate community, the folks several-years married and approaching 10 and 15-year college reunions; the folks who are not quite as athletic as they may have been in their prime, but more than overcompensate with their lust for competition; the folks who run teams like the one I played with last weekend. I forgot that I cannot stand these people, at least not on the field; and it's much harder to be forgiving of people you don't really know.
The tournament began at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday morning--it was already 80 degrees and the day would easily reach 100 over the next five rounds of play before culminating in a 20-minute thunderstorm replete with lightning, fire department warnings to leave the field, and a full rainbow. But what was worse than the steadily rising heat were the captains' and returners' steadily rising tempers...
"That was just f-cking lazy!"
"Play some f-cking defense! Be f-cking on their f-cking hip!"
"This is f-cking unacceptable!"
"F-ck!" "F-ck!" "F-ck!"
Even calling time outs, one of the guys felt the need throw down the disc and yell "TIME!" as if he were yelling "F-CK!" They argued calls. They threw water bottles. They made audible and mean jokes about the opposing team. I know they didn't always mean to sound angry or be assholes, but just listening to them talk that way drove me nuts. All they had to say were negative things, and really, they weren't good enough to justify it all. That, and they played a conservative game that meant looking off deep (and wide open!) cuts by pickups (yes, like me) .
I didn't go back on Sunday; it was against many principles I used to hold dear (persevering through unpleasant situations, especially physical ones; never saying no; not holding people's personalities against them) and I felt terrible about leaving the women with one less sub, but the prospect of playing another day with those men on a dubious ankle just didn't sit well with me. I decided that I play Ultimate to have fun and that Saturday was certainly not fun.
That night I had a nightmare that I cursed at Quasar on the field, and I was so scared when I woke up that I had actually done it. I am not sure when I simultaneously became such a softie and such a judgmental soul, but really. You don't curse at your team. You don't curse at people. End of story. Thanks for listening.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
All that's left to say (ultimate post)
It was not a speech I was prepared to give.
We were fourteen teammates sitting in a grassy field, not even making an effort to swat away the flies that hovered around our exhausted, sunscreened, sweaty necks. The silence was enormous, and I was slow to go and sit down in it.
The entire fall season, we would have 8 or 9 or 10 girls, more than half of whom had only been throwing frisbees for 1 or 2 or 3 months, running their legs off, barely catching, making frantic throwaways, probably not scoring--the entire fall tournament season, we would wake at the crack of dawn to travel to tournaments, not win a single game all weekend and yet every time, I genuinely smiled and joked and rallied and told them to be proud, to be radiant, to go and win that party! If anyone had asked my co-captain J. Ames and me about Regionals, we would smile in that knowing way and say, "It's a rebuilding year; we're learning a lot."
But on spring break, we worked hard, slept (reasonably) well, forgot about school, and let go. By the end of it, we were not only putting up valiant fights against decent teams from up and down the East Coast, but beating some of them as well. The girls, their ultimate careers matured by a few months, learned to read the disc, learned to beat the in-cuts, learned to come from behind, learned to dominate. By Yale Cup we were taking Wellesley to hard cap; yesterday we kept our focus to take down Brandeis to break seed. We were ready to be talking strategy and not just spirit now. All of a sudden, if someone asked me about Regionals, I would nod and say, "Yeah, we'll have to work hard for it, but we could do it."
So when the morning of Sectionals rolled around, the words came easily: the concern now was keeping their heads up and in the game, keeping the whole team involved when I knew we would have to tighten up the rotation. I had the soundbyte ready: "You are in this game whether you're on or off the field. We can only do this with everyone's heads and voices in the game. They are a three-person team; we are a 17-person machine. Everyone is in it; everyone is working; let's go, Quasar!" And oh, the energy that followed. Oh, the smooth looks, and the hard defense, and the big backhand breaks with our speedy receivers.
But now, on a different day, after a loss to MIT in the last round of pool play (expected, and well fought), a loss to BU in the second place bracket (more bitter, a spirit breaker), and a loss to BC in the game to go to the game to go (a loss in which we were at game point for at least five points against a team we'd beaten 11 - 3 just a month prior) -- what was I going to say? The last game was one in which I saw us lose our offense almost entirely, in which I couldn't make it happen with the big backhand breaks, in which our man D fell flat, in which my best player's head was hanging heavy with frustration, in which I couldn't crack a smile or a joke or a motivational soundbyte if it would have saved my life, or the game. It wasn't enough that we got broken with IO flicks and beaten by crappy, floating dump passes, but I let us get broken, emotionally, and that was just too much.
So sitting in that grass this afternoon after losing our bid to regionals, I didn't want to lie. I tried to look around, make eye contact with everyone and give them that goofy smile that I give, the one that makes everyone embarrassed, the way they would be at a well-meaning parent, and smile back if only to be polite. But no one was looking up. "Hey Quasar, hey Quasar. There were a lot of great things in that game. That was a hard fight." It fell flat. I wanted JAmes to say something; I wanted Jefe to come back; I wanted someone to just break the silence and I wanted to swat flies in a ridiculous manner so that someone would laugh. JAmes said, "Hey, it sucks to lose." Yes, yes, okay, there's the honesty that we need. But where's the "but"? It sucks to lose, but... we played our hardest? we played our best? This would be dishonest, and it would just hurt more to hear it, because everyone knew it wasn't true.
So I said what I was thinking: "We've come a long way. Think about how far we've come since the fall, ladies. Everyone did something in that game that they couldn't do just three or four months ago. Nine months ago, some of you hadn't even touched a disc before, and look at you now. This could have gone any way, and we didn't pull it out this time. But we have fought hard all weekend; we fought hard all day." Ugh. That wasn't right.
And then silence. I didn't have anything left in me. No appropriate jokes; no appropriate encouragement that rang true. So I just sat quietly, feeling the soreness creep in. No one else had anything to add.
"All right. Let's stretch it out. Let's go for a cooldown." And we ran. And we got in the cars. And we had team dinner. And now JAmes and I are trying not to let it get to us, but both not being able to shake the sense of responsibility, the sense of fault.
Last year and the year before, when I wrote about our less-than-stellar performances at Regionals, I wrote something along the lines of and "Jefe turned to me and said, 'That could be you next year'" in reference to playing in the game-to-go, and "But I hope I'm not writing the same thing next year..." in reference to how much potential we had for next year.
Now, as a captain, and in anticipation of another big year, I am full of something quite different than hope. I have always thought of frisbee as another sport in which I could run my heart out, feel the thrill simply of physically working hard and occasionally making a big play or two. This year, there is an element of responsibility and ownership unlike any that can be felt when you are a rookie or floundering second-year, one that makes the anticipation of another year of captainship that much more loaded. The questions seems purposeful and challenging in a way that a lot of other things right now don't: how can I shape a team emotionally and physically? What does it take to change and capitalize on the potential of a group that could come back more than 15 strong and with rookies to boot? What particular social dimensions, attitudes, and inevitable academic obstacles will I have to take into consideration? And of course, how can we play better frisbee? How much of it will be how fit I am and how well I perform?
I no longer ask myself why this is so important to me, why sitting in that field after Sectionals was so emotional or why I almost got teary talking to my former captain from freshman year afterward. I don't need to justify feeling touched when my team surprises me and my co-captain with a lovely personalized breakfast (complete with males in Speedos with guitars serving us mimosas) and a hand-drawn construction paper card with all of them drawn out in stick figures. People often seem to think that I am eager to be a leader and take charge of things, but really, what it boils down to is just that I get involved and end up caring so much that I can't help but doing what it is that I do. I want to make people happy, and for a sports team this means not only being happy with a social environment and feeling loved, but playing well and winning games and feeling the pressure-- I've had less experience with the latter, but that's what I'll be working on this next year.
I've prepared a soundbyte for this coming year, it's been thrown around and murmured back and forth between teammates and between my new co-captain and me for years. Sometimes it was in exaggerated jest, sometimes with deluded pride, but I say it with total earnestness now: "Quasar at Nationals '09 or bust." Put that on the record for Spring '08, and I'll be back next year for the last time to report.
We were fourteen teammates sitting in a grassy field, not even making an effort to swat away the flies that hovered around our exhausted, sunscreened, sweaty necks. The silence was enormous, and I was slow to go and sit down in it.
The entire fall season, we would have 8 or 9 or 10 girls, more than half of whom had only been throwing frisbees for 1 or 2 or 3 months, running their legs off, barely catching, making frantic throwaways, probably not scoring--the entire fall tournament season, we would wake at the crack of dawn to travel to tournaments, not win a single game all weekend and yet every time, I genuinely smiled and joked and rallied and told them to be proud, to be radiant, to go and win that party! If anyone had asked my co-captain J. Ames and me about Regionals, we would smile in that knowing way and say, "It's a rebuilding year; we're learning a lot."
But on spring break, we worked hard, slept (reasonably) well, forgot about school, and let go. By the end of it, we were not only putting up valiant fights against decent teams from up and down the East Coast, but beating some of them as well. The girls, their ultimate careers matured by a few months, learned to read the disc, learned to beat the in-cuts, learned to come from behind, learned to dominate. By Yale Cup we were taking Wellesley to hard cap; yesterday we kept our focus to take down Brandeis to break seed. We were ready to be talking strategy and not just spirit now. All of a sudden, if someone asked me about Regionals, I would nod and say, "Yeah, we'll have to work hard for it, but we could do it."
So when the morning of Sectionals rolled around, the words came easily: the concern now was keeping their heads up and in the game, keeping the whole team involved when I knew we would have to tighten up the rotation. I had the soundbyte ready: "You are in this game whether you're on or off the field. We can only do this with everyone's heads and voices in the game. They are a three-person team; we are a 17-person machine. Everyone is in it; everyone is working; let's go, Quasar!" And oh, the energy that followed. Oh, the smooth looks, and the hard defense, and the big backhand breaks with our speedy receivers.
But now, on a different day, after a loss to MIT in the last round of pool play (expected, and well fought), a loss to BU in the second place bracket (more bitter, a spirit breaker), and a loss to BC in the game to go to the game to go (a loss in which we were at game point for at least five points against a team we'd beaten 11 - 3 just a month prior) -- what was I going to say? The last game was one in which I saw us lose our offense almost entirely, in which I couldn't make it happen with the big backhand breaks, in which our man D fell flat, in which my best player's head was hanging heavy with frustration, in which I couldn't crack a smile or a joke or a motivational soundbyte if it would have saved my life, or the game. It wasn't enough that we got broken with IO flicks and beaten by crappy, floating dump passes, but I let us get broken, emotionally, and that was just too much.
So sitting in that grass this afternoon after losing our bid to regionals, I didn't want to lie. I tried to look around, make eye contact with everyone and give them that goofy smile that I give, the one that makes everyone embarrassed, the way they would be at a well-meaning parent, and smile back if only to be polite. But no one was looking up. "Hey Quasar, hey Quasar. There were a lot of great things in that game. That was a hard fight." It fell flat. I wanted JAmes to say something; I wanted Jefe to come back; I wanted someone to just break the silence and I wanted to swat flies in a ridiculous manner so that someone would laugh. JAmes said, "Hey, it sucks to lose." Yes, yes, okay, there's the honesty that we need. But where's the "but"? It sucks to lose, but... we played our hardest? we played our best? This would be dishonest, and it would just hurt more to hear it, because everyone knew it wasn't true.
So I said what I was thinking: "We've come a long way. Think about how far we've come since the fall, ladies. Everyone did something in that game that they couldn't do just three or four months ago. Nine months ago, some of you hadn't even touched a disc before, and look at you now. This could have gone any way, and we didn't pull it out this time. But we have fought hard all weekend; we fought hard all day." Ugh. That wasn't right.
And then silence. I didn't have anything left in me. No appropriate jokes; no appropriate encouragement that rang true. So I just sat quietly, feeling the soreness creep in. No one else had anything to add.
"All right. Let's stretch it out. Let's go for a cooldown." And we ran. And we got in the cars. And we had team dinner. And now JAmes and I are trying not to let it get to us, but both not being able to shake the sense of responsibility, the sense of fault.
Last year and the year before, when I wrote about our less-than-stellar performances at Regionals, I wrote something along the lines of and "Jefe turned to me and said, 'That could be you next year'" in reference to playing in the game-to-go, and "But I hope I'm not writing the same thing next year..." in reference to how much potential we had for next year.
Now, as a captain, and in anticipation of another big year, I am full of something quite different than hope. I have always thought of frisbee as another sport in which I could run my heart out, feel the thrill simply of physically working hard and occasionally making a big play or two. This year, there is an element of responsibility and ownership unlike any that can be felt when you are a rookie or floundering second-year, one that makes the anticipation of another year of captainship that much more loaded. The questions seems purposeful and challenging in a way that a lot of other things right now don't: how can I shape a team emotionally and physically? What does it take to change and capitalize on the potential of a group that could come back more than 15 strong and with rookies to boot? What particular social dimensions, attitudes, and inevitable academic obstacles will I have to take into consideration? And of course, how can we play better frisbee? How much of it will be how fit I am and how well I perform?
I no longer ask myself why this is so important to me, why sitting in that field after Sectionals was so emotional or why I almost got teary talking to my former captain from freshman year afterward. I don't need to justify feeling touched when my team surprises me and my co-captain with a lovely personalized breakfast (complete with males in Speedos with guitars serving us mimosas) and a hand-drawn construction paper card with all of them drawn out in stick figures. People often seem to think that I am eager to be a leader and take charge of things, but really, what it boils down to is just that I get involved and end up caring so much that I can't help but doing what it is that I do. I want to make people happy, and for a sports team this means not only being happy with a social environment and feeling loved, but playing well and winning games and feeling the pressure-- I've had less experience with the latter, but that's what I'll be working on this next year.
I've prepared a soundbyte for this coming year, it's been thrown around and murmured back and forth between teammates and between my new co-captain and me for years. Sometimes it was in exaggerated jest, sometimes with deluded pride, but I say it with total earnestness now: "Quasar at Nationals '09 or bust." Put that on the record for Spring '08, and I'll be back next year for the last time to report.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
April 15, 2008
is overrrrrrr!
That's right, tax season has ended. I can now be a real person with a real life again. I'm SO EXCITED! Just thought I'd share that :)
Why's Half What so dead?
That's right, tax season has ended. I can now be a real person with a real life again. I'm SO EXCITED! Just thought I'd share that :)
Why's Half What so dead?
Abortion/Conviction
After seven aborted drafts and an electronically mailed kick in the butt from Lindsey, I've decided to set something down. You are all lucky that I hadn't found the time to finish up entries about relationships, art history, writing, sexism in politics, and some trip I took to Wesleyan in November. It was just too much information.
Over the last month or two, I've lost a job, failed some exams, screwed up my chance for a sublet, and failed at painting portraits so consistently that my professor told me to paint something that would make me happy (not faces!), because we were all miserable looking at the pathetic attempts at likenesses. And also, my room is a mess. To a disturbing degree.
But the important part of this night, tonight, April 17, 2008, is that I went to see Sokari Douglas Camp, a female, Nigerian-born, British artist, speak about her work. Usually, I am not so interested in these talks, and I am even more uninterested in the awful questions that get asked at the end of them. But tonight, I didn't care about the irrelevant questions, didn't much care about the fact that the fiancee of my now ex-boss was sitting in the front row, since she organized the talk-- tonight, I listened to a woman talk about her "attachment" to two countries, about being a woman, about her heritage, and being interested in physical manifestation and welding and boats and politics and the people who walk by her studio during the day. These were her convictions about her life experience and about her hopes for the political futures of the countries with which she feels a connection (without making claims about ownership of particular identities, whether racial or political or otherwise) and her desire to bring the vibrant memories of her Kalibari town to London.
And I realized that I have these convictions, too.
By some funny twist of fate, I have developed reputation as some kind of visual artist here at Harvard, something of a painter and a go-to graphic designer for publications--from literary journals to economics reviews to sex magazines. Sketches and portraits of folks from professors to classmates to strangers are done in lines rather than letters. Yet I never could call myself an "artist" the way I was pretty comfortable calling myself a "writer" before. I didn't have any conviction; I didn't have any purpose in my painting.
But now I see that I care, about being a woman, a girl, a Taiwanese -born American, a college student, a citizen, a lover, a daughter, and a friend. That I care about materials and experience and that these are all legitimate points of departure for making art. I still don't know how I feel about what it means in the cosmic scheme of things, but at least I have a reason to carry these paintings through.
Over the last month or two, I've lost a job, failed some exams, screwed up my chance for a sublet, and failed at painting portraits so consistently that my professor told me to paint something that would make me happy (not faces!), because we were all miserable looking at the pathetic attempts at likenesses. And also, my room is a mess. To a disturbing degree.
But the important part of this night, tonight, April 17, 2008, is that I went to see Sokari Douglas Camp, a female, Nigerian-born, British artist, speak about her work. Usually, I am not so interested in these talks, and I am even more uninterested in the awful questions that get asked at the end of them. But tonight, I didn't care about the irrelevant questions, didn't much care about the fact that the fiancee of my now ex-boss was sitting in the front row, since she organized the talk-- tonight, I listened to a woman talk about her "attachment" to two countries, about being a woman, about her heritage, and being interested in physical manifestation and welding and boats and politics and the people who walk by her studio during the day. These were her convictions about her life experience and about her hopes for the political futures of the countries with which she feels a connection (without making claims about ownership of particular identities, whether racial or political or otherwise) and her desire to bring the vibrant memories of her Kalibari town to London.
And I realized that I have these convictions, too.
By some funny twist of fate, I have developed reputation as some kind of visual artist here at Harvard, something of a painter and a go-to graphic designer for publications--from literary journals to economics reviews to sex magazines. Sketches and portraits of folks from professors to classmates to strangers are done in lines rather than letters. Yet I never could call myself an "artist" the way I was pretty comfortable calling myself a "writer" before. I didn't have any conviction; I didn't have any purpose in my painting.
But now I see that I care, about being a woman, a girl, a Taiwanese -born American, a college student, a citizen, a lover, a daughter, and a friend. That I care about materials and experience and that these are all legitimate points of departure for making art. I still don't know how I feel about what it means in the cosmic scheme of things, but at least I have a reason to carry these paintings through.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Friends who Kiss
It's less exciting every time.
I went out on a date Saturday night--a Japanese restaurant on Park Street and a walk on the Common. It was good sushi and magical weather, but that night, at 11:18 p.m. post-date, my stomach was already hungry and the feathery snow had turned to chafing cold. I turned down the customary offers of dessert or a movie or a party because I just didn't feel like letting the night go on (and I've learned pretty well that "watch a movie" is code for "cuddle on the couch"). His face dropped when I said I was tired--"But it's only 10:30..."-- I made up some excuse about the last two days being really tiring, but I think he got the message.
I've written several cute and earnest posts about the new men I've encountered since breaking up with Samy. I've left out the gory details, any chances for identification, and a lot of the less significant incidents, but I think I've lost even the hope in finding lessons in all of these happenings. It's just dating--it's just dinners, it's just movies, it's just drunken forays into intimacy, it's just bad lines from the worst movies and people looking for convenient companionship. Just in the last two weeks I've truly been converted to the worst kind of cynicism and resignation, best embodied by the snippet of true life conversation below, giggled through flirtations fueled by a bottle of Yellowtail Merlot:
"What are we doing, LeeAnn?"
"Flirting, because we like each other."
"But we're just friends?"
"Just friends."
"Just friends."
"Yeah, friends who kiss."
I went out on a date Saturday night--a Japanese restaurant on Park Street and a walk on the Common. It was good sushi and magical weather, but that night, at 11:18 p.m. post-date, my stomach was already hungry and the feathery snow had turned to chafing cold. I turned down the customary offers of dessert or a movie or a party because I just didn't feel like letting the night go on (and I've learned pretty well that "watch a movie" is code for "cuddle on the couch"). His face dropped when I said I was tired--"But it's only 10:30..."-- I made up some excuse about the last two days being really tiring, but I think he got the message.
I've written several cute and earnest posts about the new men I've encountered since breaking up with Samy. I've left out the gory details, any chances for identification, and a lot of the less significant incidents, but I think I've lost even the hope in finding lessons in all of these happenings. It's just dating--it's just dinners, it's just movies, it's just drunken forays into intimacy, it's just bad lines from the worst movies and people looking for convenient companionship. Just in the last two weeks I've truly been converted to the worst kind of cynicism and resignation, best embodied by the snippet of true life conversation below, giggled through flirtations fueled by a bottle of Yellowtail Merlot:
"What are we doing, LeeAnn?"
"Flirting, because we like each other."
"But we're just friends?"
"Just friends."
"Just friends."
"Yeah, friends who kiss."
Saturday, January 26, 2008
A Different Tune
It has come to my attention that everyone is a music snob. The thing is, people are just snobbish about different music. Many of my college friends don't realize I'm a music snob because the type of music I'm snobby about doesn't come up in conversation too frequently. I don't know why I never realized this before.
I found a friend who was into the same type of music I listened to in high school, the same bands and everything. We spent forever talking about the bands and the music and listening to the music. I haven't thought about music like that in a long time. Most of the people I hang out with now are into rap (which I don't have any type of expertise or snobbery about) or classic rock (which I'm only snobby about a couple bands, otherwise I just like most of it). After listening to friends argue last night about some artists that I was familiar with, but definitely not a fan of, I came to this revelation. I still find it funny how much music impacts lives.
Currently listening to: Gym Class Heroes - As Cruel As School Children
I found a friend who was into the same type of music I listened to in high school, the same bands and everything. We spent forever talking about the bands and the music and listening to the music. I haven't thought about music like that in a long time. Most of the people I hang out with now are into rap (which I don't have any type of expertise or snobbery about) or classic rock (which I'm only snobby about a couple bands, otherwise I just like most of it). After listening to friends argue last night about some artists that I was familiar with, but definitely not a fan of, I came to this revelation. I still find it funny how much music impacts lives.
Currently listening to: Gym Class Heroes - As Cruel As School Children
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