i LIVE in a MELTING POT

Yea for diversity. Nay for stereotypes.

I have countlessly been a victim of stereotypes as a Korean-American female living in the United States. I used to live in Warren until the age of three before moving to Troy. My parents actually decided to move because of the unbearable prejudice there. Because of the kids that would stretch their eyes back with their fingers and shout “ching chong” in my face. But of course back then I had no idea what they were saying nor the implications of such gestures.

My family moved to Troy, an accepting, diverse community, and honestly, it was a lot better. But I soon realized that even here, some people had this same bias. My first grade teacher had me go to ESL. I was perfectly fine at speaking English. I still remember the first question of my final test (with a diagram): is the crayon inside the box or outside of the box? And there were those times that my classmates would go up to me and ask if I was Chinese or Japanese. I just answered neither. People would ask me where I was from. And I answered America because I was, after all, born here. I wasn’t chosen to be on the white girl’s soccer team because “Asians were bad at sports.”

I thought racial prejudice was the only thing I had to deal with, but I turned out to be wrong. My tall friend was favored for gym class teams even though we both kind of knew I was better. Even just a few weeks ago, a boy in my class told me that “girls have no sense of humor” because I didn’t laugh at his unfunny meme.

I hate that it’s this way, but everyone carries bias, and the enemy of this battle is ourselves. Articles and experiments that disprove these stereotypes such as ones like “Are Women Really More Talkative Than Men?” help to educate others and relieve bias. Many in my class claim that talkative women is not a bad thing. I somewhat agree because the word "talkative" carries a relatively neutral connotation. However, the word "talkative" could also be synonymous to chatty, which has a slightly negative connotation and possibly signify superficiality. This could have a negative impact on women.
I wonder if society will ever have an unbiased society. What do you think?

hi. i am here to watch.

Yea for opinions. Nay for conflict.

New semester, new essay. Or two essays. Two very-relevant-in-today's-society essays. And they're about sensitive topics. Talking about these topics? It can almost get worse than walking on thin ice.

Words must be chosen carefully in order to avoid conflict. I guess that's what I'm afraid of. Conflict. I genuinely admire those that have the guts to go out there and say everything on their mind. Even if they're ignorant because they can always be educated. Opinions are weapons, blunt like a baseball bat or jabbing like a knife's point. If I take out my weapon, I don't want thousands of knives (of judgement and insults?) coming at me. To be honest, it's more of a fear of "wrong opinions" or "stupid questions." I know those that are quick to reply, "There are no wrong opinions!" or "There are no stupid questions!" but I think it's fair to say people are attacked all the time for their opinions and questions.

The fear of being wrong may be very common among people, but I think this should change. Asking questions and vocalizing opinions, even if they seem ridiculous, must become normalized in order to gather knowledge and advance from past mistakes. People should not insult the ignorant, but educate them. If people make mistakes, they are not “canceled.” I advise people not to make fun of mistakes, but correct the mistakes. Everyone should work together to prevent later mistakes. One mistake in judgement does not dictate a person’s personality, opinions, or thinking.

I’ve decided I’ll try talking more for my own advancement. I encourage my fellow silent bystanders to also step up, and for a selfish (the good kind) reason: advancement.

the AP test

Yea for English. Nay for tests.

This is the first homework assignment I’m starting for this weekend. I’ve been putting off doing the AP multiple choice questions that were assigned to us for the weekend, and to be honest, I don’t even want to look at it. It kind of makes me queasy and sweaty in the palms every time I think about the AP test. I actually can’t believe it’s almost time to start thinking about it. I guess I got a bit scarred from 10 honors last year. I’m praying that I’ve improved since then. And yes, I really can’t tell if I have. Is that a bad sign?

Well, to go back to my 10 honors experience, I remember Mrs. Parks gave us this multiple choice AP test. And I thought, Great! What better way to test these nonexistent reading comprehension skills of mine added with a nice time limit?

I swear I’m the slowest reader alive. It didn’t help that my concentration was at rock-bottom and my paranoia was constantly gnawing away at me. I had to read a paragraph three times because I couldn’t retain any of the information. Even for questions I knew the answer to, I read them an extra number of times in case I missed something, which was a pretty bad idea. Seriously, I had more than ten questions left after the teacher called the last five minutes.

I ended up bombing the test, as expected. I don’t know if it’s a smart idea to announce my grade on a public blog post, but I don’t really care. So, I got about a fifty percent. And it kind of sucked. Because I always thought I was better at English than math. But I’ve never gotten a fifty percent in math. (I’m very sorry for the sentence fragments. Maybe I do just suck at English.)

I’m still recovering from that experience (I don’t know why I’m being so dramatic). I think it triggered an anti-test mindset in me, and my pessimism is setting me up for failure. A lot of my other test grades after that started plummeting, like my math tests (to be honest, those were always bad), my AP chem tests (actually those were bad too), and my ACT (I put A for 10 of the questions I didn’t answer in the science section).

I don’t really like this post and I don’t even want to post it, but I can’t seem to remember anything we did in class this week except for the essay (which I don’t want to remember), so I don’t have a choice. Or maybe I'm just too lazy to rewrite another blog post. I hope, however, I’m able to get over my negative mindset and actually tackle this test thing soon.

See you soon, AP English test. I won't fail you this time.

Dreamers are the Losers

Yea for success. Nay for failure.

I wasn’t relieved after I finished The Great Gatsby. I was just depressed. Not because the book was over, but because of the ending. I realized Gatsby, no matter how hard he tried, never actually climbed the social ladder.

The “American Dream” doesn’t exist.

Now, that’s really harsh and unpleasant to think about. It literally means that hard work amounts to nothing. I found myself asking the web if the American Dream exists. I got a bunch of results with the word “still” caught in between the question. And I almost laughed. Has it ever existed? If the 1920s had it bad, we have it worse. According to the internet, success requires “extra time and patience,” and certainly more than ever. Our standards are at an all-time high, and merely graduating high school can’t get you a job. Everyone will laugh in your face.

Fitzgerald is clear on the fact that new money can never be old money, and even if one tries, it will all just end in a morbid way.

I truly want like to believe the opposite. I want to believe hard work does equate to success. I want to know that my work will pay off. I don’t want to think about the slackers that will ultimately face the same fate as I do. And I certainly don’t want to become some rich, lonely, old money wannabe that gets killed by some irrelevant, sad man.

So I think I’ll just carry on with my old ways, whether that’s the right way or not. I would rather live life thinking I can change my fate of a sad, Troy resident than be stuck in that pessimistic mindset. Thanks, though, F. Scott, for the heads up.

Females are Fools

Yea for knives. Nay for murder.

Daisy, as she talks about her daughter, says, “I’m glad it’s a girl. And i hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

When I first read this, I was confused by the strange way Daisy expressed her hopes for her daughter. Why would she want her daughter to become a fool? I became to realize this reason was the fact that she was female. Actually thinking about it, it’s kind of depressing. A woman like Daisy did virtually nothing at the time when this book was written. She has no motivation, dreams, and her life is pointless. Daisy hopes for her daughter to grow up unlike herself, who is aware of her pointless, unambitious life.

And this led to my question: can ignorance prevent depression? Is knowledge misery?

After some thinking, I realized I was being silly. This can easily be answered by both you and I. It is obvious we need our brains and knowledge to survive. We need knowledge. Then why is the phrase “ignorance is bliss” tossed around in everyday speech? Turns out, we need both knowledge and ignorance. We probably need to know how to use a fork and knife. We probably don’t need to know how if feels to kill someone.

Daisy does not want her daughter to find out about the meaningless life of a female, as she believes, she is living. Because if she does, realization may be even worse than killing someone.

The Weight of Gold

Yea for flight. Nay for blight.

Today, many kids and the celebrities they look up to are caught up in materialistic wealth. Through the rise of YouTube stars, more kids are being influenced by luxuries that they strive to afford in the future. A new trend has started: a showing off trend. A new way to garner kids’ attention is to show off richness. Because several people are fascinated by video blogs of rich people, the number of people engaging in these activities has increased rapidly. These stars are now a large influence; many kids now believe wealth is a form of success and freedom.

Macon Dead II is obsessed with wealth and business. Milkman, influenced by his father, starts to believe wealth will help him fly. He chases after Pilate’s gold, trying to attain something that wouldn’t actually be that much of a benefit to him. This gold, however, is useless, as he finds out it is more a form of imprisonment.

To children, wealth is an escape from their real life, and seeing these video stars gives them hope. They don’t realize that materialistic aspects of life can weigh them down and prevent them from achieving freedom. Videos and social media only show the good side, and this image may leave a false impression on the audience. Contrary to kids’ beliefs, the wealth shown off by video stars is not all that great.

Will these children realize that wealth does not equal freedom?

Is this portrayal of wealth destroying us?

Gender Roles

Yea for the people. Nay for the gender roles.

Song of Solomon creates a story filled with gender roles. Women are at home, and men are at work. Men are abusive and cruel, while women are submissive. Even Corinthians, who is educated, is confined into a role of a maid. The only person who doesn’t follow such roles is Pilate, and that’s what makes her stand out so much.
Although our society is changing and has improved, people are still experiencing gender stereotypes. “Women should be in the kitchen!” and “Men should be earning all the money!” phrases are slowly diminishing. However, this form of discrimination is still clearly present in our society.
A new word, “mansplain,” was added to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary on March 2018. Mansplain is defined as “when a man talks condescendingly to someone (especially a woman) about something he has incomplete knowledge of, with the mistaken assumption that he knows more about it than the person he's talking to does.” Basically, it’s when some man just assumes a woman is ignorant and talks without knowing what he’s talking about. What’s worse is that people that mansplain aren’t aware of it, and think they’re actually doing women a favor. I cringe thinking about the number of times I’ve seen angry women attacking an arrogant man trying to defend himself online. There are still people that regard women as unintelligent, and it’s sad to see a word such as “mansplain” exist.
K-pop, or Korean pop music, is increasing in popularity around the world. Male singers, often called idols, appear on stage with eye makeup and tight jeans. Does that take away from their masculinity? People assert that men should not wear makeup or dye their hair because it’s not “masculine.” Does that mean women should not be mechanics because the job isn’t feminine enough? People are enforcing things that men and women can’t do by these statements, and later complaining about gender roles. It seems so hypocritical. Before you criticizes others, you should look at yourself. Are you sure you’re not just lacking confidence in yourself? Why does it matter to you how people act?