Life in the Ivy League

New Hampshire Primary

2008-01-08T18:59:00.000-08:00

What a whirlwind it has been the last several days! Today the New Hampshire primary took place. I cast my first ballot ever! It was surprisingly easy. I only had to fill out two forms and wait in line for about 10 minutes. I had been expecting a much more difficult experience.

Quite a bit happened in the run-up to the primary. Yesterday, I met Bill AND Chelsea Clinton! I was out holding Obama signs on a street corner. Some supporters of Hillary Clinton came as well. Chelsea greeted them, and she was quite gracious with us Obama supporters. I got to shake her hand and talk to her for a few minutes.

Later in the evening, I shook Bill Clinton’s hand as he came into one of the dining halls. He was charming as ever.

Some of Hillary Clinton’s supporters were not, however. As I was standing on the street corner one woman shouted repeatedly that she was not “voting for another unqualified mail!” She also declared that she would not support Obama if he won the nomination. Another kept talking about how we needed a mother to clean up after this country’s messes because men are generally worthless. It is worth noting that all of the Clinton supporters save for a couple were middle aged women. They could not find any Dartmouth students to stand on Hanover street corners with signs.

The Obama supporters by contrast were much more diverse both gender and ethnicity wise. Today, Obama himself came to campus and had a rally early in the morning. He gave a good speech, but one of the people seemed to faint in the middle. After the speech, I voted.

I am waiting for the returns now, and am quite anxious to see how he did. In the meantime, I am trying to focus on my classes. I am in four this term: One about medieval France, introductory French, advanced Chinese, and an earth science classes. So far the classes seem interesting. I will have more to report soon!

Back at Dartmouth

2008-01-05T15:51:00.001-08:00

I’m back in Hanover! I finished unpacking and then took my family for thai food before they left.

I have been gone for more than six months, and I see lots of changes. When I went to the dining hall, there were so many new faces that I have never seen. There is also a huge Christmas tree in the middle of campus that I don’t remember last year. But in other ways, from the snow to the beautiful brick buildings, campus is the same.

I bought the remainder of my books today as well. They were so expensive! My books for just two classes cost $203! That’s more than college used to cost a semester at some schools! Professors really could be a little more considerate. We’re not all rich.

But even the exorbitant sums of money I spent on books has not been able to dampen my spirits. Why? Barack Obama just won convincingly in Iowa! He now has a lot of momentum going into New Hampshire.

I have enjoyed hearing the excuses out of the Clinton camp. They have said it was not her best state, lamented that she did not inherit an organization from Bill Clinton, and even claimed that the state was sexist.

First, I don’t remember Barack Obama inheriting an organization from 1992 either. It’s Hillary’s fault, and her fault alone for getting such a late start, and not dedicating the time she needed to. She has the highest name identification of any candidate in living memory, a ton of money, and more establishment support than God.

Lastly, the claim about sexism is the most preposterous. A majority of Iowa’s caucus goers were women. Obama won them. And Iowa is only 2% black. It’s a no brainer to see who had the major demographic advantage: Clinton had over 50% of the electorate (women) as a natural constituency, while Obama had just 2% (blacks). I can just imagine if Obama had tried to use the fact that there were so few blacks as a reason to lower expectations. He would have been crucified in the media for “playing the race card.”

I was interested to see the number of young people and independents who turned out. People always say that young people will not vote, but they were proved wrong in Iowa. And Obama’s demonstrated appeal to independents shows how electable he is. I expect lots of independents to vote for Obama in New Hampshire. On a related note, I can’t wait to vote in New Hampshire!!

This is all for now. I will post again soon with my reactions to my first week of class, and to the results of the New Hampshire primary.

Photo finish?

2007-12-28T22:23:00.000-08:00

The polls are showing a very tight race in Iowa right now. A strategic vision poll showed the Democrats in a statistical dead heat with Mike Huckabee leading the Republicans. One thing's for sure, at least on the democratic side, it will be a photo finish.

final greatest hit

2007-12-26T18:05:00.001-08:00

Finally, here is my reflection on China:

I am finally back from China. I am just now recovering from the effects of the jet lag and want to share my experiences.

I had never been out of the country before I went to the country, and had no idea what to expect. But It was a worthwhile experience. I’m glad I went.

The work over there was pretty intense. Every day, I took Chinese for three hours a day, and then on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I took a comparative class on Shanghai and Beijing during the 1930s. In our Chinese class, we learned between 150 and 200 new words. We learned four lessons a week and had a test every week. Studying was like cramming for end of term finals back at school.

But all the work in Chinese paid off. When I first go to China, I would have to admit that my Chinese was pretty horrible. But after 12 weeks, I was able to understand what people were saying in most situations. And I was able to have some philosophical conversations; the day I left I had a conversation with a taxi driver about the death penalty, and whether it was moral.

In my comparative class, we had a 12 page paper due at the middle of the term, and a group project at the end. We had daily readings too, but those were never difficult to accomplish.

Some of the most important learning took place out of class, however. It was only in restaurants, and in streets, and in pickup soccer games that I was able to use my Chinese in real life situations. I saw which vocabulary and grammatical constructions I would need to actually use. More importantly, I learned about Chinese culture through these interactions.

Eating was a fascinating experience. In large groups, we would go to tables with a spinning top on them. Several dishes would then be placed on this top. We all had to share the dishes. Each time you want to eat some of a particular dish, you had to rotate the wheel towards you. I also got quite accustomed to using chopsticks. Before I got to China I had no idea how to eat with them, but now I am quite comfortable using them. I do have to say that I prefer eating the American way. I prefer getting to pick my own dish and eat if myself. And I much prefer using knives and forks instead of chopsticks.

While in China, I was fortunate to see many historical sights. I saw the summer palace in Beijing, as well as the Forbidden City where the emperors used to live. I also got to hike part of the Great Wall. I was grateful to be able to take in all of these places.

I was also able to see other parts of China besides Beijing. We took two weeks off in the middle and went to Shanghai and other cities in the southeast of the country. Shanghai is a very modern and international city. It is more cosmopolitan than Beijing and also more expensive. The climate is also better. I wish we could have spent more time there.

At the end of the trip, I left with a great deal of love for the country and a desire to return one day. Hopefully I can do an internship there Junior year, and perhaps work for a year or two. I published an article about race in China which you might find interesting. Here is the link:

http://www.blackcommentator.com/256/256_student_writers_corner_brother_china_gadson.html

I have a month off at home, and I’m looking forward to some downtime. In the winter I will go back to Dartmouth. You can bet I will post again when I return.

great hits excelsior

2007-12-25T13:31:00.001-08:00

This post comes from the summer when I was getting ready for China. Here it is:

I’m less than two weeks from going back to college.

To be exact, I’m studying abroad in Beijing, China. I will take classes at Beijing normal university. I’m so excited! I’ve never been out of the country before. While I’m in China, I hope I get to see sights like the Great Wall.

Getting ready for China has been quite an expensive proposition to say the least. The round trip plane fare was $1300, and the vaccinations must have been at least another $1000. This is not to mention the spending money I need when I get over there. I think it will be worth it though.

At home, I’m packing all the stuff necessary to go. I will keep you updated when I’m over there.

The true meaning of Christmas

2007-12-24T07:02:00.000-08:00

It's Christmas time and everybody is out and about doing last-minute Christmas shopping. But I've been thinking about the real meaning of the holiday recently.

Republican Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee has come under fire recently for airing an ad talking about Christmas as the birth of Christ. But that is exactly what it is. As such, we should ask, what would Christ say about the way the Christmas holiday has evolved.

I think it is fair to say that he would be dismayed. It has grown so commercialized and artificial. We think of it as an excuse to give or get new plasma tvs. This is not to say that we should never give or get gifts on holidays. But I do think we over-do it. So this Christmas, I will focus much more on enjoying my family and thinking about the selflessness Christ demonstrated on earth.

Another Greatest hit

2007-12-24T07:01:00.000-08:00

As we move into 2008, I want to share my thoughts on my first full year in college. Here it is:

I have been home for a little over a week now, and I want to offer my reflections on my freshman year of high school.

I will start with the academics. Overall, I have been fairly pleased with my professors this year. They have been accessible for the most part, and I have taken advantage of this by going to their office hours, which I think has helped my grade. I want to talk briefly about two of the most memorable professors I have had thus far. When I first met her, I thought my Chinese professor was insane. She assigned so many new characters to learn a week, and she seemed very harsh at first. However, she also had a motherly side, and cared deeply for her students. When I was sick, she offered to come bring me medicine in my dorm.
My other memorable professor taught a class in African-American studies about the role of religion in the civil rights movements. In class, he would say the most off-the wall things. He was also extremely cynical. He would constantly remind us that he knew we were putting our papers off until the night before. Best of all, he had a scale of profundity by which he graded papers. As he once said, “the shorter the paper is, the more profound it has to be.” I will miss these two professors immensely.

The classes for the most part were not terribly difficult. Certainly, they were not much harder than the classes I took in high school, although my course load there was quite rigorous. I took seven classes in high school, while I only did three per term at Dartmouth. The classes at Dartmouth were probably a little more intense; it was common for me to have a fifteen page research paper due at the end of each term in my humanities classes. Overall, the work was nothing I could not handle.

College is not all academics however, and it is important to discuss the social aspect too. I was privileged to have good friends from very diverse backgrounds. For example, my debate partner during the last part of the season was Indian-American, while the rest of the team had Pakistanis, Americans and Brits. I have met people from all 50 states including Montana and Virginia and Alaska. It is interesting to hear stories from people who have done all sorts of interesting things, and who have had such different lives.

At the same time however, I sometimes found the intellectual experience outside the classroom a little wanting. Dartmouth has some of the brightest students in the country, and yet it was pretty rare for me to have intellectual conversations. People seemed more interested in getting drunk at fraternity houses than they did in carrying on conversations with each other. Perhaps, as I spend more time at the school, I will find more people who enjoy engaging in such conversations.

Similarly, there seemed to be subtle divisions by class on campus. Everyone talked about racism and homophobia, and sexism, but no one seemed to care much about classism, which was just as serious an issue in my view. As a kid from a middle class family, I often felt like an ambassador from another country watching kids spend hundreds of dollars at restaurants, or talk about their vacation plans in Europe for this summer. I can only imagine what it must be like for the very small number of kids from poor families.

On another note, the weather took some getting used to. I am from Indiana, and have experienced cold and snow before, but never on the scale that I did at Dartmouth. The first snow came in November, and the snow did not completely melt until mid April. It was bitterly cold as well. I remember having to walk to class in the morning in negative 20 degree temperatures. At many points, especially in the middle of winter, this became very depressing. Junior year, I will try to study abroad in France so as to avoid this.

Next fall, I am going to study abroad in China. I will be a student at Beijing Normal University studying intensive Chinese. During my free time, I hope to explore the city some more. This will be my first time outside of the country, and I am extremely excited. When I come back, I will formally declare a major. I expect to double major in Chinese and history.

Next year, I plan to publish on this blog much more frequently. In addition, I will be posting periodically throughout the summer. Thank you to everyone who has read my posts this year.

Clintonian parsing

2007-12-24T06:49:00.000-08:00

We have just recently learned that the word saw can have multiple meanings for the word "saw" This knowledge came from Presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R-Massachusetts). It turns out that the word can have a metaphorical meaning as well.

He wanted us to believe that his father, George Romney marched with Martin Luther King in the 1960s. As it turns out, this is simply untrue. It is true that George Romney had excellent civil rights credentials. But the idea that he marched with King is just a plain exaggeration. And it's insulting to the people who literally (and not just figuratively marched with Dr. King.

Perhaps this wouldn't be such a big deal if Romney didn't have a reputation for saying whatever he thinks he needs to at the moment. He has flip flopped on big issues like abortion and gay rights. And he also overstated his support from the NRA when he said the organization had endorsed him. The group did no such thing.

The only good thing about this is it takes place during the Christmas holidays when alot of people aren't paying attention to politics. Hopefully for Romney's sake, this pattern will not derail his chances at the White House.

Great hits part infinity

2007-12-18T10:48:00.001-08:00

This post was from April of this year when I was hard at work trying to find an internship. The scandal over Don Imus's comments had just erupted as well.

I am well into the new term now. My classes are becoming steadily more work. This work I have midterms in all three of my classes. I expect my history and Chinese ones to be difficult, and my black studies class one to be easy. Additionally, I have several research papers do at the end of term, and it is time to start thinking about potential topic now.

It will however be easier to focus on academics now, since the debate season is over. I was very pleased with my improvement over the season. Last week, at Clark, my partner and I went 4-1 and made into varsity quarterfinals. We would have gone even further but for lousy, biased judging. In that round we had three judges. One of the judges was a debater we had beaten into the ground earlier. Another was a judge who we had clashed with earlier and who despised us. The third judge was someone we had never met. We lost on a 2-1 decision. Go figure.

Right now, I am busy trying to find a summer internship. If I have my way, I will work with the congressional black caucus for ten weeks this summer. I am still waiting to hear however. I am getting a little anxious to be honest. I have to submit a request for school funding for my internship by April 27, and I am unsure where I will be working. There is nothing to do now but sit back and hope for the best.

I would be remiss to ignore some of the events going on in the world as these have been on my mind as well. Don Imus was fired this week from his show. I have mixed feeling. The man should obviously go for his racist and indefensible comments. But there is a tendency to think that by firing such people we are fighting racism. But I am uneasy that so many will think that they are stamping out the last vestiges of hate by firing this man. This is simply untrue. Blacks continue to face discrimination in applying for jobs and mortgages. They continue to face crippling stereotypes both within the black community and in the greater society. Black children suffer a soft bigotry of low expectations from both blacks and whites. Imus’s remarks were but a small symptom of the remaining prejudice we must overcome to get to a truly egalitarian society.

Greatest hits...again!!!

2007-12-16T14:20:00.000-08:00

The following post comes from march of this year. I had just finished up winter term and gotten involved in Rock with Barack. Enjoy!

Term is finally over. The last few weeks I have been busy studying for finals. It was very stressful because I had two finals on Saturday and one on Sunday. In fact on Saturday night, I actually did not sleep at all; I pulled my first all nighter at college. My finals were fairly difficult, especially my linguistics final, and my Chinese history and culture one. I do know however that I got an A on my Chinese Language final. At the very least, I am done.

I am looking forward to having a couple of weeks off from school. For spring break, I will be traveling down to New Orleans to do relief work. We will gut houses mostly, though we will do other work, too. There are so many students from Dartmouth going down! I am heartened to see so many people care. I will be sure to let you know my reflections on the trip when I get back.

I have been very busy these past few weeks working as deputy director of rock with barack, a grassroots organization. We are contacting college democrat chapters across the United States. In addition, we have an online petition campaign to get Tom Vilsack, the former Governor of Iowa to endorse Obama. You can sign here: http://www.petitiononline.
com/rwb2008/petition.html. For all the time this work takes, I really enjoy it.

When I get back to campus in a couple of weeks, I have much to look forward to. I am taking three classes: age of the American Revolution, a women and gender studies class or a class on Martin Luther King, and a Chinese Language class. If nothing else, the weather in spring will be much better!

Des Moines Register endorses Hillary Clinton

2007-12-16T14:10:00.001-08:00

The Des Moines Register, the most influential newspaper in Iowa, has just endorsed Hillary Clinton.

The pundits are busy speculating as to how much this will affect the race. My hunch is not much. The Register hasn't picked a winner of the Iowa caucus since 1980. But secondly, I think that newspaper endorsements are generally meaningless. This might be an exception since it is the biggest paper in Iowa. But I really do think that most people will decide on their own.

It is beyond doubt that all of the campaigns wanted the endorsement, so this is surely a blow for Edwards and Obama. However, Obama at least had the consolation prize of being endorsed by the Boston Globe in the New Hampshire primary.

greatest hits continuing on..

2007-12-14T20:24:00.001-08:00

I am adding my first post from 2007. I had just completed a term at Dartmouth, and was getting adjusted to both the academic and social scene. Here it is:

It has been an exciting week. I am finally starting to settle into my classes. For my historical linguistics class, I had to learn lots of material from the introductory linguistics class so I could understand the necessary terminology. This class is fascinating. We are studying the ways languages evolved over time.

My other two classes of course are Chinese history and culture, and Chinese language. I have the same professor for both of these. Learning Chinese characters is getting easier to do, though I must still invest a great a great deal of time to write and rewrite the characters. The grammar is getting more challenging however. In my Chinese History and culture class, we are reading Confucius, and learning early Chinese history. I have to say, Confucius is pretty boring. My professor also keeps assigning more and more work. Just this weekend, she e-mailed members of the class to gives us additional assignments to the one on the syllabus.

This week, I got to hear the first of many presidential candidates come to New Hampshire. His name was Mike Gravel, and he was a two-term senator from Alaska. He filibustered the draft in the 1970s, and read the pentagon papers into the congressional record. He is a democrat who supports the fair tax, and what he calls the national iniative, a plan to let regular people have a greater voice in government. In the next months, many more Presidential candidates will be coming to campus. Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack is coming next Saturday. I’m excited for primary season!

On the weekend, I went to Middlebury for a debate. My partner and I faced five excellent teams. We lost most of them, but the rounds were certainly close. We also had some very shoddy judges. One of them was apparently under the impression that slavery was not one of the causes of the civil war. On that note, I actually met a girl from Virginia on our team who still calls the civil war the “war of northern aggression.” Very interesting.

Right now I am doing some major studying, since I was away Friday and Saturday. Shortly I will take a break and engage in a snowball fight on the green. Snow is finally coming down, and luckily it is the sort which can easily be packed into snowballs. It will be a nice study break. I look forward to posting next week.

Greatest hits continued

2007-12-13T12:44:00.000-08:00

This post is from September 2006. It was during orientation, and I was just getting to know many of the people who would eventually become my classmates. It was all a whirl. Here's what I said:

The other day, I promised to go more in depth about the type of people I have met during my time so far. Before I came here I wondered a great deal about what kind of people these would be.

I came expecting to find mostly spoiled rich kids from the east coast. I must say that I have been pleasantly surprised thus far. The kids I have met seem down to earth, and I have come across very few arrogant people. No one has bragged about their accomplishments in high school, or their high SAT scores, etc. This is dramatically different from my stereotypes about Ivy-League schools.

I also want to note the diversity of the people here I have met. I do not just mean racially here, although I have met people from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds. What is most astonishing is the diversity of background and interest. In my two weeks here, I have met a kid with a wise guy new york accent and a Nigerian with a British accent just to name a few. Everybody has an opinion on everything, and there are always interesting people to talk to. I have had good conversations with kids here on topics ranging from basketball to politics. This is not to say there are not "weird" people. Everyone is also quircky (possibly more so than at most schools). Overall, I definitely like the people here so far.

I have unfortunately had less contact with professors. I have been to a couple of department open houses during orientation, and have found the professors engaging and genuinely excited to teach. I will let everyone know more about the teachers here once I begin all of my classes on Wednesday. This is all for now, though I will post again this weekend about why I chose to come to Dartmouth.

Democratic Debate: Winners and Losers

2007-12-13T12:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I evaluated the Republican debate in Iowa, so I will do the same for Iowa. Overall the debate was pretty bland again.

Winners:

Chris Dodd

He was forceful and articulated what he wanted to do well. He also effectively showcased his experience. It's too bad it won't help him get any votes.

Barack Obama

He had the line of the debate. When the moderator asked him how he could represent change effectively when he had so many old Clinton advisors working for him, Hillary Clinton laughed loudly and said, "I'd like to hear that." Obama replied, "I look forward to you joining them."

Losers:

The moderator and the format.

If you couldn't tell from yesterday's post, I am not wild about this format. It's much more like joint press conferences than a debate. The moderator did at least do better than she did yesterday.

Republican debate

2007-12-12T12:26:00.000-08:00

The Republicans just conducted their last last debate before the Iowa caucuses in Des Moines. It was generally pretty boring. But I will nonetheless name my winners and losers:

Winners:

Mike Huckabee

He managed to escape any questioning about playing the religious card against Mitt Romney. He also gave sophisticated answers on education, which will help to fight the notion that he is a small-minded baptist preacher who knows nothing about the wider world. His line about unleashing "weapons of mass instruction" was well received.

Mitt Romney

His answers were smooth in the debate. It was also refreshing when he chose to avoid complaining about the tax burden of wealthy people and instead talked about how he worried about middle class people.

Losers:

Alan Keyes

Does somebody want to tell me what this man is doing here? He contributed nothing except for needless histrionics and generally avoided answering the moderators questions directly. What a worthless addition to the debate.

The moderator

She had trouble keeping control of the debate at times, and when she wasn't doing that, injected herself too much. Plus, I'm tired of hearing questions that require a simple hand raise.

Greatest hits

2007-12-12T12:22:00.002-08:00

The year is coming to a close, and I have been privileged to share my experiences with all of my readers. In the next few days, I will share some of my most formative experiences this year.

I'll start with my very first post, which technically began in 2006:

Every year, over 110,000 talented kids apply to the eight ivy-league schools. It's a tough process. I know because I was one of those kids last year. I am starting this blog to give prospective applicants and people who are just curious an inside glimpse at what life is like at an ivy-league school (I am at Dartmouth) What is the education like? What are my fellow students like? Is going to an ivy-league school worth the enormous cost? These are the questions I hope to answer for all concerned. I hope you find this blog informative.

This was before I had gone to Dartmouth or studied abroad in China. I had no idea what to expect. And in many ways, I am still learning about Dartmouth. In the next years, I look forward to sharing what I have seen and experienced.

article on Clinton and Obama

2007-12-12T06:44:00.000-08:00

It’s crunch time now in the Democratic primaries. Voters in the key early states of Iowa and New Hampshire are starting to pay serious attention to the campaign. Rightly or wrongly, many of the pundits—yes these would be the same ones who were ready to write John Kerry’s political obituary this time four years-- have already decided the race has come down to Clinton vs. Obama. Being the student of history that I am, I can’t help but notice the similarities the two have to Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln respectively.

Consider the criticism leveled against Senator Clinton. Citing her high negatives—extremely high given that it’s not even general election time—critics have said she is simply too polarizing to be elected.

Indeed there is considerable evidence that Clinton is a divisive figure. Polls show around 40% of Americans wouldn’t vote for her under any circumstance. Such a figure is much higher than her main challengers for the democratic nomination, Obama and Edwards. In light of such numbers, the Democrats have every right to be worried.

But I’m not sure if those negatives will keep her out of the White House. When Reagan was running against Jimmy Carter for the first time, plenty of pundits thought he was too divisive a figure to win. And a divisive figure he was. During the election, many on the left—particularly members of the civil rights establishment—predicted the apocalypse if he won. Moreover, even though he is a popular figure now, it should be remembered that his domestic agenda was extremely polarizing while he was in office. Yet Reagan did win in 1980 and was reelected in 1984.

Of course Reagan also ran under favorable circumstances. Jimmy Carter was an unpopular incumbent in 1980. And the economy boomed during much of term, allowing the public to overlook the scandals, and his controversial stances on civil rights, AIDS, and apartheid. But Reagan’s success clearly shows that someone with high negatives can win.

Obama’s detractors, including his opponents for the nomination have argued strenuously that a man with only two years of experience in national office is not ready to govern. Most notably, Mrs. Clinton called him “irresponsible and frankly naïve” for promising to meet with rogue leaders in his first year in office. Since then, every time he differs with establishment dogma on an issue, he is charged with not having enough experience to be President.

Having years of experience is no guarantee of a good Presidency, however. Just ask James Buchanan, John Quincy Adams, or Herbert Hoover (remember learning about them in history class?). Their resumes were as deep as any. But they accomplished nothing in office. Hoover is famous for presiding over the first years of the Great Depression, while Adams accomplished more as a congressman fighting slavery late in his life than he ever did as a President. The worst of the lot is Buchanan, who let the Union crumble around him in the 1850s.

In fact, it is good judgment that makes a good President. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was at least as inexperienced as Obama. He had only served one term in the House of Representatives. Despite his lack of experience, Lincoln persevered through the civil war and made the country whole again. These examples prove one thing: an inexperienced man with good judgment can be a good President, but all the experience in the world can’t make a person with bad judgment a good leader.

It can well be argued that Obama has that sort of judgment. During the run-up to the war in Iraq—when Bush’s approval ratings were through the roof—Obama gave an extremely prescient speech, declaring, “invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda.” Too bad there weren’t more people in Congress with that kind of foresight.

The analogy isn’t perfect. Not even Clinton’s most ardent backers would argue that she is as charismatic as Reagan. The world is also a different place now then it was in 1860. Who knows how Abraham Lincoln would have done in an era where the US is the world’s superpower? But there are enough similarities to make the analogy hold. In the next months, Democrats will chose whether they want someone like Ronald Reagan or someone like Abraham Lincoln to be their nominee.

article on Giuliani and republicans

2007-12-12T06:43:00.000-08:00

The Republican establishment has failed to rally around a candidate in this election. Sam Brownback has endorsed John McCain. Bob Jones III is behind Mitt Romney. The biggest surprise of all came when Pat Robertson announced his support for Rudy Giuliani. Some conservatives were surprised by this, in no small part because they think Giuliani’s nomination would mean a different Republican party.

However, I am convinced that most Republicans will have no problem with him if they really examine his stands on the issues. Anyone happy with George Bush and Ronald Reagan will be happy with Rudy Giuliani.

The issue most pre-occupying Republican voters right now is the War on Terrorism. Giuliani’s rhetoric gives us every reason to believe he’ll be just as tough as any of them want. He is on record saying that terrorists “follow a violent ideology: radical Islamic fascism, which uses the mask of religion to further totalitarian goals and aims to destroy the existing international system. … The purpose of this fight must be to defeat the terrorists and the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan (http://www.slate.com/id/2172285/).”

Like diehard neo-cons, Giuliani is convinced that Iraq is the critical front in the war on terrorism. Although he initially equivocated on the surge—like most other Republican contenders—he has long since backed it. On the stump he goes out of his way to remind us that he will do anything to win it.

To win the war on terrorism, Giuliani will use everything in the Bush toolbox, if not more. He has pointedly refused to rule out using water boarding, and other interrogation techniques widely regarded as torture. When asked about sleep deprivation he demurred, saying that “They talk about sleep deprivation. I mean, on that theory, I’m getting tortured running for president of the United States. That’s plain silly. (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/in-his-own-words-giuliani-on-torture/).”

Similarly any Republican who liked Reagan’s economic policy will be pleased with Giuliani’s. As Mayor of New York, Giuliani cut a plethora of taxes; by the time he left he could take credit for cutting income taxes, sales taxes, and commercial rent taxes among others. All told, the city cut taxes by at least $5.8 billion—or $9 billion (http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Rudy_Giuliani_Tax_Reform.htm) if you buy Giuliani’s numbers. Either way, his tax cuts were significant.

8Furthermore, Giuliani has endorsed the Bush tax cuts and says they should be extended. He favors helping Americans with rising healthcare not with expanded government influence, but with a major tax deduction of up to $15,000 (http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Rudy_Giuliani_Health_Care.htm).

The issues which tend to worry conservatives are abortion and gay marriage. Here Giuliani does differ with conservative ideology. He’s pro gay rights—he even crashed with some gay friends after a messy divorce. He’s also pro-choice. On Meet the Press in 1993, he told moderator Tim Russert that he planned to lobby the national Republican Party to change its stand on abortion.

But the Giuliani of today has promised to appoint “strict constructionists” to the bench—essentially a wink to the right wing of his party that he’ll appoint pro-life judges. Granted, Giuliani’s pitch that “if you don’t like my position on abortion, you’ll like the judges I appoint,” borders on the ridiculous.

But at worst, the judges Giuliani appoints will not overturn Roe vs. Wade and his overall effect on abortion will be the same as George W. Bush, George H.W Bush and Ronald Reagan: nothing. But if Giuliani does succeed in putting another conservative Justice on the court, then the country will be faced with the truly ironic situation of a pro-choice politician accomplishing the most important goal of the pro-life movement.

Critics have tried to paint Giuliani as a moral relativist who doesn’t share the conservative movement’s values. Try convincing the porn dealers he drove out of Times Square of that. Or the criminals he methodically rooted out during his tenure of New York. When combined with his zeal for the war on radical Islam, it is clear that he shares the good vs. evil view which is an overarching theme in today’s conservatism.

In the next months as the primary contest draw nearer, certain elements in the Republican Party will search frantically for an alternative to Giuliani, convinced that he will irrevocably change the Party. If Giuliani is indeed nominated and then elected, he will do no such thing.

Reflection on China

2007-12-07T18:37:00.000-08:00

I am finally back from China. I am just now recovering from the effects of the jet lag and want to share my experiences.

I had never been out of the country before I went to the country, and had no idea what to expect. But It was a worthwhile experience. I’m glad I went.

In my comparative class, we had a 12 page paper due at the middle of the term, and a group project at the end. We had daily readings too, but those were never difficult to accomplish.

http://www.blackcommentator.com/256/256_student_writers_corner_brother_china_gadson.html

I have a month off at home, and I’m looking forward to some downtime. In the winter I will go back to Dartmouth. You can bet I will post again when I return.

In sickness and in health

2007-11-07T04:25:00.000-08:00

I have been getting sick lately. If I’m not studying, I’m taking medicine or sleeping. Tonight, the group went out to get Peking roast duck, but I couldn’t go because I was feeling so bad. I can’t believe I missed it!

Hopefully I will start to feel better soon. Next week, I’m going to Xian, where the terra cotta warriors are located. I am really excited. Hopefully, I’ll have some pictures to post when I get back. Regardless, I will post my reactions to the trip when I return.

On another note, I can’t believe all that I’m missing back at Dartmouth. It’s primary season and all the candidates are visiting New Hampshire. I would really have liked to see the most recent debate too, where the Clinton campaign alleges that here opponents used the “politics of pile on” because she’s a woman. I’m anxious to see whether or not that strategy works.

In class, we’re working hard on group projects now. My group is doing student politics. So we are researching the state of student politics in China, and tracing its history. We also have to write a 12 page summary of the project. It will be time consuming.

It is hard to believe how little time I have left in Beijing. In less than a month I will be home. I will try to find some more time to explore the city before I go.

I forgot the link to my article!

2007-11-03T22:47:00.000-07:00

My article on the black vote: http://www.wiretapmag.org/race/43290/

fully commited

2007-11-03T22:36:00.000-07:00

It’s been a long week. On Thursday, I turned my essay in about political movements in china in the early 20^th century. I will be pretty upset if I don’t do well on it. This week, we also learned a lot of new characters and new words—the most yet it seems like. I am not anxious to see how I did on the weeks test.

On a brighter note, I have published an article on the black vote in the 2008 primaries at wiretap magazine. I even got paid! When I get back home in December, I will think of more stories to write.

This weekend, one of my friends came to visit me in Beijing. We went present/souvenier shopping yesterday. I got to bargain quite a lot. I saw first hand just how pushy Chinese merchants can be. They would hold my arm, and beg me to buy from them. It was a fun day and a nice respite from the constant study here.

I am also doing my group project today. We are meeting with someone the professor knows for guidance and resources.

I am going to try to go to bed early tonight. I feel a little cold coming on. I will post again soon.

halloween foolishness

2007-10-30T23:51:00.000-07:00

It’s back to the old routine here in Beijing. I am pretty stressed out this week. We have our twelve page essay due Monday, which I have just finished, and our lessons are getting steadily harder—and dumber.

For some reason, we have had to learn the characters for some of the following words I doubt I will ever use: “grassland,” “microphone,” “small ornamental purse,” and of course “cotton-padded jacket.”

Tonight, we are also being forced to watch a movie for two and a half hours. I don’t get it—they give us insane amounts of work and then keep us from studying this afternoon. I hate it when people tell me how I will be spending my time.

This weekend, things will be better hopefully. I am having a friend from Dartmouth visit me in Beijing, so we’ll get to hang out together. I hope to post again when I’m feeling more positive.

Reflections on Shanghai

2007-10-25T17:53:00.000-07:00

I am finally back from my midterm trip to shanghai. I am anxious to share my experience.

We traveled down to shanghai on a “hard sleeper train.” In this sort of train, there are a bunch of beds in a train car, so you can sleep on the way down. It was a long train ride and fairly uncomfortable.

We stayed in a really nice hotel during our first couple of nights in shanghai. We went to a museum and explored the city for a couple of days. Shanghai is a beautiful city with an international flavor to it. There are plenty of foreign restaurants, stores, and architecture.

On my birthday, I and some of my friends went for Thai food. I’m 20 now! It feels a little weird not being a teenager anymore.

We then traveled to a lot of little cities around shanghai like Ningbo and moganshan. We did a lot of group activities there like hiking. We also ate most of our meals together. They were all family style, which I grew to dislike. Someone (usually the teacher) would order a bunch of dishes. They would then be placed on a spinning mechanism on the table. When you want a dish, you have to rotate it towards you.

We ate a lot of weird dishes like pigeon, a foul-smelling tofu, and bamboo. The few good dishes that we had were rapidly gobbled up by everyone. The result was that I (and many others) never got full from the meals. I don’t like the idea of somebody else ordering food for me. I am excited to be able to order my own dishes from now on.

I had a lot of interesting experiences as well too. I rode a three hour boat to get back to Shanghai from one of the cities we were staying in. I visited an island with a Buddhist monastery. It was neat to see all of the temples and statues. Many Chinese visit every day. My teacher informed me that they do so less out of religiosity than they do out of respect for tradition, and a belief that it brings good luck.

Back in Beijing I have a 12 page paper to work on, and I will start classes again on Monday.

Going to Shanghai

2007-10-12T01:03:00.000-07:00

The first half of our classes is now done. We are now going on our midterm trip to shanghai! I am excited to try southern Chinese cuisine, and do sightseeing and shopping in Shanghai.

We will be there for two weeks, and will make trips to some other Chinese cities in the vicinity. We will be taking an overnight train down to the city. I can't wait to share my impression of Shanghai, and will do so at length when I get back.

An uneventful week

2007-10-06T05:51:00.000-07:00

This week has been very quiet. We only did three lessons in class instead of the usual four. Seeing that we were all a little stressed out canceled all events this week, so I have ample time to study and work on my essay.

I have also been contemplating how much Chinese I will take when I get back to Dartmouth. On one hand I want to truly master Chinese, and be able to have deep conversations. However, learning Chinese can be very stressful. I have to give up a large portion of every weekend learning new characters. I’m sure that I would learn another language such as French much easier.

Next week, we are going to see shanghai. I am extremely excited. I will get to try shanghai cuisine which is different than northern Chinese cuisine. Also I will get to hear the Shanghai dialect of Chinese, though most people there do speak Putonghua, the dialect spoken in Beijing. I will post again next week.

Weekend Update

2007-10-01T02:20:00.000-07:00

This weekend was interesting. On Saturday, We went to go visit Tiananmen Square, and then the forbidden city, where emperors held court, and hosted gigantic celebrations. It is actually fairly expensive by Chinese standards to enter the Forbidden City; it cost 60 kuai or around $8 if memory serves.

Once there we saw several old buildings, many of which were unfortunately under construction. But I was amazed by the ornate furniture and the beautiful architecture. I was also taken slightly aback by how big the city was. It took us several hours to walk through the whole thing. And remember that the Forbidden City is but a tiny part of Beijing.

After our tour, we were going to eat dinner at a restaurant that claims to have served the emperor. We found out soon that it would cost as much as 2,000 kuai or almost $300 a person. Needless to say, we found another, much cheaper restaurant to eat at.

On Saturday night, some of my friends and I went out to meet some (relatively young) Dartmouth alumni. I got to play ping pong for the first time here with some native Chinese. I played with a twelve year old boy who killed me. I did even worse against his father. Ping pong is very popular in China, and these two played often.

I also got to talk with them and practice my Chinese. One of my friends was there too, and had been playing beer pong, a game where you try to hit a ping pong ball into a cup of beer, and make the other team drink. Though drunk, he managed to carry on a conversation with these two in flawless Chinese. It was then that I realized that he speaks Chinese better drunk than I do sober!

It is hard to believe, but the first half of our class will be finished next Friday. After that, we will embark on our midterm trip to shanghai for two weeks. I am truly excited to experience southern Chinese food, and see what life is like outside of Beijing.

The head of the FSP seems to have noticed how stressed out we all seem lately, because of all the Chinese, and the projects we have to do for his class. He has therefore cancelled all of our planned events this week, giving us more time to study and relax. I am extremely grateful.

It is weird following all of the current events going on in America by the internet. Several interesting things have been going on. Earlier this month, several thousand people poured into Jena, Louisiana to protest the over- prosecution of six boys in a school fight. Here is a link to an article I wrote months ago: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_marcus_g_070812_does_equal_protectio.htm

President Bush also signed sweeping legislation on student loans which he had initially opposed. Here is a link to an article I wrote about that in the summer: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/08/01/214034.php

All the while the Presidential primaries are heating up in both parties. It is hard to believe that we’ll know who the Republican and Democratic nominees are in just a few months. It is even harder for me to accept that I will be missing the action.

Settling into a routine

2007-09-27T05:18:00.000-07:00

This week has been fairly uneventful. I have mostly studied to get ready for the quizzes (which we have every day) and the test, which I am currently studying for tonight. There are so many characters to know!

In addition, I have been busy with my class on the Beijing and Shanghai. This week we had the most boring readings ever. They were about construction, and department stores. To be honest, I don’t remember what the other ones were about.

We are constantly kept busy on this program. Just about every day, we have mandatory programs, many of which we are told about at the very last moment. One time last week, the professor of our comparative class on Beijing and Shanghai decided to take us on an impromptu field trip downtown, without telling us beforehand. While I appreciated the trip, I would have preferred to have more advance notice; it probably didn’t help that I was up to my ears in work that night.

This week, we went to see the Beijing opera. There were some good acrobatics, but overall, it was not a very meaningful experience. I couldn’t understand very much of what the actors said, and I had so much work to do. It’s kind of ironic; the program director tells us to go out and explore the city and have fun, but then we are assigned ridiculous amounts of work which make it difficult to enjoy the excursions we do have.

On the plus side, I am getting to know the people in my group better. It is quite an eclectic, not to mention eccentric group. My roommate knows both Chinese and Japanese, and does professional wrestling on the side. Another girl on the trip prepared 13 lessons before she even set foot in China. She is very passionate about the environment, philosophical to the extreme, and speaks excellent Chinese to boot. I have also gotten to know some locals, who have helped me improve my Chinese, and played soccer with me from time to time. I hope to play some ping pong with them to (the Chinese are famous for great ping pong players).

I sometimes think of everything I am missing back home. At Dartmouth, there was a Presidential debate last night. That’s right! I missed a chance to see all of the Democratic candidates in action! I am also missing the crunch of primary season in New Hampshire, which is a very exciting time. Going on this program will have been worth it though. I have managed to publish a couple of articles however. I wrote one about the media circus surrounding Larry Craig and Michael Vick. The link is here: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/09/17/133510.php. I will also have an article about the black vote as it pertains to the 2008 Democratic Presidential primaries appear in November in Wiretap magazine.

I also think of all of the things I need to do when I get back to Dartmouth in the winter. I have to pick a major, pick hours for my job on campus (in the equipment room), pick classes, and readjust to life at school after having been gone for six months. There will be a whole new class there, and so much will have happened in the fall. I will post again this weekend (hopefully!)

To be or not to be

2007-09-21T06:04:00.000-07:00

Another week is over. And I am extremely thankful. This week has been very stressful. We have to learn so many new characters a day. On top of that, we have many planned events that eat into the schedule.

Earlier in the week, we listened to a Chinese man named Kaiser (what an odd name!) give his opinions on topics varying from Chinse rock and roll to Chinse politics. He was very entertaining, highly intelligent--and maybe the most profane met I ever met. Every other word from him was a swear word. To be honest, the two hours I spent listening to him would have been better spent studying.

On wednesday, we met Chinese students from nearby universities. The ones I talked with knew english very well, and knew a lot about American pop culture and contemporary trends. One knew more about NBA history than the average American fan. He had heard of Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain! How many kids my age in America know those men? Another girl, impressed me with her knowledge of American colloqial enlish. As I was speaking to her, she regularly used phrases such as "that sucks" and "you get me?"

When I spoke Chinse to them, the students were all complimentary. But I have to wonder if they were just being polite. Most Chinese are likely so surprised when foreigners try and speak Chinse to them, that they can't help but be impressed. As I've been in China, I am continually aware both of how much Chinese I have learned, and how much more I have to learn before I can say that I speak the language well.

Today, we had a test in Chinese that I think I did well on. Afterwards, we played a familiar game called mafia, using Chinese. I learned new vocabulary words like "to kill," and to "defend yourself." As with almost all previous games of mafia I played, I was killed very early. But it was a fun experience nonetheless.

Tommorrow, I am going to visit the ming tombs, where many of the emperors from the ming dynasty (1368-1644) are buried. I met the man who will be guiding our tour there tommorow. He is an interesting man, who knew all sorts of weird trivia about the various ming emperors. I look forward to going tommorow.

I will post again with my reflections on those tombs later this weekend, hopefully.

I can finally post again

2007-09-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to post on this blog for several days. But the internet has been acting up at my dorm, making it hard to access e-mail, or use skype to call my family. But here I am.

It has been an eventful couple of days. On friday, we had our first test. It had seven parts, the last of which was a weird speaking section. Everybody did ok though. In some ways the class is difficult. The professors barely speak English, so it can be hard listening to them explain a difficult grammar point in Chinese. On balance though, I think it is helpful.

On Saturday, our group hiked a section of the great wall from Si Ma Tai to Jin Shang Ling. It was a six hour journey, and at times very arduous. At some points, it was almost a complete vertical climb. At the start of the hike, we had to cross a wooden bridge that looked like it could collapse at any time. It was very scary, although I should have known that the bride had worked well for decades. In any case, I was saying the 23rd psalm as we crossed. The scenery was beautiful. I took several pictures which I hope to post here soon.

We met some interesting people on the wall as well. Several merchants followed us. Chinese merchants by the way are much more persistent than their American counterparts. They literally will not take no for an answer. One followed us for about an hour and a half in hopes of getting us to buy something. By sheer force of will, that man got a couple of students in our group to buy some of his wares.

On Sunday, I studied for a while, and then played soccer with several friends. We played in a public park against Chinese kids. Soccer seems to be extremely popular here as well. We won about three games, before losing to a team we should have beaten. It was a fun time.

Right now, I am busy studying. We are learning about 60 new characters a day plus grammar. That means writing the characters literally thousands of times a day to memorize them for the quiz the next day. On the bright side, I will have learned alot of Chinese when I come back! I will post again later this week.

first impressions of China

2007-09-12T02:42:00.000-07:00

I have now been in China for four days. I love it here!

We started class on Monday. The two teachers are both Chinese, and know very little English. It has been an interesting experience trying to understand them, especially when they explain tough grammar points in Chinese. But ultimately I think it will help us. It seems like they are pretty understanding thus far.

The best way to improve by far though, has been talking to people on the street. It is a humbling experience. I am alternatively reminded both of how much Chinese I know, and of how little. But it is a comforting thought to know how good I'll be by the time I come back.

My other class is a comparative study of Beijing and Shanghai. The professor, is a party animal who loves to go to clubs and punk rock concerts. But he is assigning a fair amount of work. He said he understood that our first priority in China would be to learn Chinese, but then he went on to give us a 12 page paper do on November 1, and a big group project due at the end of term. Oh well.

The food here is amazing. So far, I have eaten in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean restaraunts. The food is very cheap to. For the equivalent of $2 or $3 you can get a nice dinner at a sit-down restauraunt. When I return to the US, I will really miss the food and the cheap prices. I will do another post comparing the Chinese food in China and the Chinese food in the US. Until next time...

First day in China

2007-09-08T16:01:00.000-07:00

I finally arrived in Beijing yesterday!

The trip over was something of a nightmare. Security was awful; I had to spend several minutes unpacking my carry-on bags so they could be inspected. Then I had to spend several more minutes re-packing them. The flight was over thirteen hours. The radio station on the airline played the same five songs over and over again, and the food was awful. I tried to sleep for most of the flight.

When I got to Beijing, I had to go through customs, and fill out several forms. It didn't help that the people were barking in Chinese. But I got through it all eventually.

The dorms at the school are very nice. It's a very hotel like atmosphere. We have television and a wireless internet connection, so I'll be able to post here plenty. Today, I'm going to explore the city some more, and meet my teachers for the term.

Until next time...

Final Preparations

2007-09-06T10:29:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving early tommorow for China!

The house has been a flurry of activity getting ready. I just packed my laptop, and the rest of my clothes. On a related note, I got skype, and a video camera so I could better keep in touch with my family.

I'm so excited about leaving. I can't wait to see what real Chinese food is like, and what life is like over there. I have done some of the lessons ahead of time so as to not be overwhelmed when I first get there.

The plane ride will be a long one, but I have several books, magazines, and some video games to keep me busy. I will post again Saturday to let you know my first impressions.

Going to China!

2007-08-24T20:17:00.000-07:00

I’m less than two weeks from going back to college.

To be exact, I’m studying abroad in Beijing, China. I will take classes at Beijing normal university. I’m so excited! I’ve never been out of the country before. While I’m in China, I hope I get to see sights like the Great Wall.

Getting ready for China has been quite an expensive proposition to say the least. The round trip plane fare was $1300, and the vaccinations must have been at least another $1000. This is not to mention the spending money I need when I get over there. I think it will be worth it though.

At home, I’m packing all the stuff necessary to go. I will keep you updated when I’m over there.

First year reflection

2007-06-12T13:40:00.000-07:00

I have been home for a little over a week now, and I want to offer my reflections on my freshman year of high school.

I will start with the academics. Overall, I have been fairly pleased with my professors this year. They have been accessible for the most part, and I have taken advantage of this by going to their office hours, which I think has helped my grade. I want to talk briefly about two of the most memorable professors I have had thus far. When I first met her, I thought my Chinese professor was insane. She assigned so many new characters to learn a week, and she seemed very harsh at first. However, she also had a motherly side, and cared deeply for her students. When I was sick, she offered to come bring me medicine in my dorm.
My other memorable professor taught a class in African-American studies about the role of religion in the civil rights movements. In class, he would say the most off-the wall things. He was also extremely cynical. He would constantly remind us that he knew we were putting our papers off until the night before. Best of all, he had a scale of profundity by which he graded papers. As he once said, “the shorter the paper is, the more profound it has to be.” I will miss these two professors immensely.

The classes for the most part were not terribly difficult. Certainly, they were not much harder than the classes I took in high school, although my course load there was quite rigorous. I took seven classes in high school, while I only did three per term at Dartmouth. The classes at Dartmouth were probably a little more intense; it was common for me to have a fifteen page research paper due at the end of each term in my humanities classes. Overall, the work was nothing I could not handle.

College is not all academics however, and it is important to discuss the social aspect too. I was privileged to have good friends from very diverse backgrounds. For example, my debate partner during the last part of the season was Indian-American, while the rest of the team had Pakistanis, Americans and Brits. I have met people from all 50 states including Montana and Virginia and Alaska. It is interesting to hear stories from people who have done all sorts of interesting things, and who have had such different lives.

At the same time however, I sometimes found the intellectual experience outside the classroom a little wanting. Dartmouth has some of the brightest students in the country, and yet it was pretty rare for me to have intellectual conversations. People seemed more interested in getting drunk at fraternity houses than they did in carrying on conversations with each other. Perhaps, as I spend more time at the school, I will find more people who enjoy engaging in such conversations.

Similarly, there seemed to be subtle divisions by class on campus. Everyone talked about racism and homophobia, and sexism, but no one seemed to care much about classism, which was just as serious an issue in my view. As a kid from a middle class family, I often felt like an ambassador from another country watching kids spend hundreds of dollars at restaurants, or talk about their vacation plans in Europe for this summer. I can only imagine what it must be like for the very small number of kids from poor families.

On another note, the weather took some getting used to. I am from Indiana, and have experienced cold and snow before, but never on the scale that I did at Dartmouth. The first snow came in November, and the snow did not completely melt until mid April. It was bitterly cold as well. I remember having to walk to class in the morning in negative 20 degree temperatures. At many points, especially in the middle of winter, this became very depressing. Junior year, I will try to study abroad in France so as to avoid this.

Next fall, I am going to study abroad in China. I will be a student at Beijing Normal University studying intensive Chinese. During my free time, I hope to explore the city some more. This will be my first time outside of the country, and I am extremely excited. When I come back, I will formally declare a major. I expect to double major in Chinese and history.

Next year, I plan to publish on this blog much more frequently. In addition, I will be posting periodically throughout the summer. Thank you to everyone who has read my posts this year.

last full week

2007-05-29T13:43:00.001-07:00

I will be leaving Dartmouth on Sunday. It is hard to think that I am so close to being done with my freshman year in college. But so much has happened in the last few days that I must write about.

Barack Obama came yesterday! Over, 5,000 people turned out to see him. He gave an extremely inspiring speech touching on healthcare, the war in Iraq, and education. He sprinkled in plenty of humorous anecdotes from his life. He recalled his days in school when he was referred to as “Alabama” and “yo mama.” Overall I think he received a very good reception, though some feel that he was “vague,” whatever that means.

But best of all I got to not only meet him, but shake his hand! I volunteered to help set the event up. I worked with the press. I gave them credentials and directed them to their seating. At the end of the event, those who had volunteered took a group photo with him. It was a wonderful experience.

I have a little more work to do before I leave here. I turned in rough drafts for two papers last week. I talked with one professor about some revisions I can make. I am waiting for comments from my other professors. I will make the changes they suggest, then I will turn the papers in on Friday.

I will reflect in greater detail on my freshman year when I get back home. Until then…

the end of the road

2007-05-13T11:36:00.000-07:00

Life goes on here in Hanover, though you probably wouldn’t know it by how frequently I update this blog. Spring term is will be over in a matter of weeks, so I am feverishly working on final projects and papers.

For my Chinese class, we have been assigned a video project. My group and I have finished our script. We have six scenes. The basic idea of the plot is that a group of friends is at home watching different television shows. We will be shooting the film in the next few days, and then we will have to edit it. The movie has to be five minutes long.

I am also working on two fifteen page research papers. I have to admit, I am not a fan of papers this long. After all, I’m only 19- I don’t really have fifteen pages of legitimate stuff to say. But I will write fifteen pages.

I am still looking for something to do this summer. I feel like a death row inmate running out of appeals. Whatever I do, I have to make money to meet my leave term earnings requirement. I have to find something soon!

End of April

2007-04-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

Midterm week is finally over. I had tests in Chinese, in my class on the civil rights movement, and in my class on the American revolution. I did well on them, I think. I particularly liked the format of my history midterm. He gave us a take-home test and 24 hours to complete it. This was to let us organized a good coherent essay, instead of being rushed for time, and I think it is much fairer.

It is actually parents weekend this weekend. So my parents have driven up all the way from Indiana. It was very sweet of them. I took them around to see the campus, and the many beautiful buildings. Yesterday, they took me out to dinner at a nice seafood restaurant. Tomorrow, we’ll get breakfast together, and then they have to go all the way back home. It was nice to see them again.

Unfortunately, work has not let up. No sooner did I leave midterm week then did I have to begin writing long research papers. In my class on the civil rights movement, and in my history class I have 15 page papers to do. I am still trying to nail down a thesis for my history paper, and I have to submit my proposal by Tuesday. I’ll really try to work on in tomorrow.

Now that debate season is over, I am doing other extra-curricular activities. I write more extensively for the Free Press, a progressive campus publication. This week, I wrote a reaction to the Don Imus controversy. I also attend something called politalk where we get free food, and talk about important events going on in the world. I will write again soon.

waiting

2007-04-15T11:57:00.001-07:00

I am well into the new term now. My classes are becoming steadily more work. This work I have midterms in all three of my classes. I expect my history and Chinese ones to be difficult, and my black studies class one to be easy. Additionally, I have several research papers do at the end of term, and it is time to start thinking about potential topic now.

It will however be easier to focus on academics now, since the debate season is over. I was very pleased with my improvement over the season. Last week, at Clark, my partner and I went 4-1 and made into varsity quarterfinals. We would have gone even further but for lousy, biased judging. In that round we had three judges. One of the judges was a debater we had beaten into the ground earlier. Another was a judge who we had clashed with earlier and who despised us. The third judge was someone we had never met. We lost on a 2-1 decision. Go figure.

Right now, I am busy trying to find a summer internship. If I have my way, I will work with the congressional black caucus for ten weeks this summer. I am still waiting to hear however. I am getting a little anxious to be honest. I have to submit a request for school funding for my internship by April 27, and I am unsure where I will be working. There is nothing to do now but sit back and hope for the best.

I would be remiss to ignore some of the events going on in the world as these have been on my mind as well. Don Imus was fired this week from his show. I have mixed feeling. The man should obviously go for his racist and indefensible comments. But there is a tendency to think that by firing such people we are fighting racism. But I am uneasy that so many will think that they are stamping out the last vestiges of hate by firing this man. This is simply untrue. Blacks continue to face discrimination in applying for jobs and mortgages. They continue to face crippling stereotypes both within the black community and in the greater society. Black children suffer a soft bigotry of low expectations from both blacks and whites. Imus’s remarks were but a small symptom of the remaining prejudice we must overcome to get to a truly egalitarian society.

Back at Dartmouth after a trip to New Orleans

2007-03-28T19:58:00.001-07:00

I am back from New Orleans now. It was a very trying, but rewarding trip. I will try and summarize as best I can.

We flew out from Boston early in the morning, and arrived in New Orleans in late afternoon. We stayed at St. Augustine’s Episcopal parish. I was struck by how friendly the pastor and the church staff were. One of the ladies took it upon herself to bake us brownies, which was extremely nice.

For several days we gutted house. This was quite an arduous process. We had to tear down trim, and destroy the walls. During our time in New Orleans, we gutted four houses. We also emptied one house of it’s contents. We found bibles, toys, and cookware. It was very emotional to see someone’s life strewn about this way.

Lastly, we mapped neighborhoods. We went and documented which houses were completely destroyed, which houses were gutted, and which houses were in the process of being rebuilt. It was a hard sight to see so many destroyed houses; the lower ninth ward looked like a war zone in a third world country.

Overall, I am glad I went. I feel like I did some small part to help the victims of the storm, and I was able to bond with the members of my trip. This week I am back at Dartmouth taking classes again. I like my professors for the most part, and I will post again to share my reflections on my classes.

Term is Over!

2007-03-14T12:11:00.001-07:00

Term is finally over. The last few weeks I have been busy studying for finals. It was very stressful because I had two finals on Saturday and one on Sunday. In fact on Saturday night, I actually did not sleep at all; I pulled my first all nighter at college. My finals were fairly difficult, especially my linguistics final, and my Chinese history and culture one. I do know however that I got an A on my Chinese Language final. At the very least, I am done.

I am looking forward to having a couple of weeks off from school. For spring break, I will be traveling down to New Orleans to do relief work. We will gut houses mostly, though we will do other work, too. There are so many students from Dartmouth going down! I am heartened to see so many people care. I will be sure to let you know my reflections on the trip when I get back.

I have been very busy these past few weeks working as deputy director of rock with barack, a grassroots organization. We are contacting college democrat chapters across the United States. In addition, we have an online petition campaign to get Tom Vilsack, the former Governor of Iowa to endorse Obama. You can sign here: http://www.petitiononline.
com/rwb2008/petition.html. For all the time this work takes, I really enjoy it.

When I get back to campus in a couple of weeks, I have much to look forward to. I am taking three classes: age of the American Revolution, a women and gender studies class or a class on Martin Luther King, and a Chinese Language class. If nothing else, the weather in spring will be much better!

the last full measure

2007-03-03T12:55:00.000-08:00

It has been a busy past couple of weeks, but I am enjoying life these days. Last weekend, we went to a debate tournament at skidmore. We still got bad decisions and shoddy judging in a couple of rounds, but my partner and I still managed to get second novice team, and tenth varsity. So at least we are making progress.

Skidmore was a pretty campus, and the school has some amazing amenities. Seniors live in town houses that have full kitchens and multiple bathrooms and spacious bedrooms. The dining hall is amazing; it has by far the best food of any college I have ever visited. The surrounding area in upstate New York is pretty, and in some ways reminds me of Dartmouth.

It’s getting closer to finals now, so I am busy studying for those. For Chinese, we have to write a skit which contains material from all the lessons we have studied thus far in the course. My friends and I are getting together to write that tomorrow. For my linguistics classes, I am rereading chapters, and doing work in study groups. And I’m not really sure how I’ll study for my Chinese history and culture class yet. The professor assigns hundreds of pages of reading a nights, so there I no way to know absolutely everything.

On a related note, I was accepted to go on the Chinese department’s study abroad program to Beijing yesterday. I am very excited about the trip! We have much to do in the coming months. We will have to see about vaccinations and apply for visas. The director of the program warned us that we would suffer in China. He told us that we would get sick a lot. I certainly hope not.

The rest of the usual drama is going on. Two people on my floor have started a romantic relationship, and everyone has taken to calling it “floorcest” I wonder how long this term has been around. It is getting warmer and warmer here. This week we broke the forty degree mark! I can feel spring coming, and it cannot come fast enough.

Another week completed

2007-02-18T20:29:00.001-08:00

I have been buried with homework today. Tomorrow, I have a test in my historical linguistics class. To study, I had to review three chapters, and go over practice problem sets. In my Chinese class, I will have a dictation quiz. I am doing much better in Chinese than I had thought. I did well on my midterms in Chinese language, and in Chinese history and culture.

I spent Friday and Saturday of this week at a debate tournament at Williams College in New Hampshire. My partner and I had a fun time and debated well. However, we had some truly awful judges. I almost wonder if a couple of them were paying any attention in the rounds. Oh well. There is nothing to do but go to more tournaments and keep at it. I’m sure we’ll get better results eventually.

The most exciting event of the week by far was when I went to go see Barack Obama on Monday. He came to visit the University of New Hampshire, and Dartmouth College Democrats took a couple of carloads of people down. I found his talk inspiring. The criticism that he has no substance is warrantless. He was asked questions about nuclear proliferation, Iraq, and the reconstruction efforts in New Orleans, and handled them deftly.

There was also plenty of drama this week. Yesterday, a girl in my dorm got a concussion when she sledded headfirst into a pile of rocks. She had to visit the school infirmary. Luckily, she is fine though. However, she doesn’t remember anything about the incident. I’m just glad everything turned out okay.

Another week completed

2007-02-18T20:29:00.000-08:00

Winter Carnival!

2007-02-11T12:54:00.000-08:00

This weekend was winter carnival at Dartmouth. It is a long tradition that happens to be a lot like homecoming. We got Friday off from class. There is a gigantic sculpture made of ice on the green of a rabbit. There have been several parties at the frat houses, ranging from an 80’s parties at sigma nu, and a disco party at the tabard house. Overall, it has been a fun weekend.

Here is a link to anyone interested in what a winter carnival sculpture looks like. http://www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=2005021101110&sheadline=pirate%20ship&sauthor=&stext.

On Thursday, after classes, my floor mates and I decided to watch Disney’s Mulan for some bizarre reason. I have to say, that it was a lot more fun than I initially anticipated; I haven’t made a habit of watching Disney movies for several years. In the song, some of the men chant that they want “a girl worth fighting for.” One intoxicated girl ventured that it would be funny if the line had been “a girl worth fighting three.” If you don’t understand this at first, neither did I. I guess the moral of the story is that drunk people say really funny things sometimes.

Life is quite busy otherwise. Over spring break, I am going down to New Orleans to aid victims of hurricane Katrina. Right now, we are raising funds to go down. We are selling baked goods, and begging the college for money. It should be fun. During our orientation meeting, we watched a video about the government’s response to the tragedy. It is just so appalling that so many people are still displaced a year and a half after the storm. I hope to play some small part in bettering the situation.

Today, I was planning to go see Hillary Clinton (D-New York). She was coming to Keene, New Hampshire to campaign for the democratic nomination for President. However, this fell through, when a miscommunication arose, and cars scheduled to pick us up failed to arrive. Oh well. I’m sure she will come to campus sometime.

exciting times

2007-02-04T21:08:00.000-08:00

I have thoroughly enjoyed myself this past week. The most exciting event by far was when former Senator John Edwards (D-North Carolina) came to campus. I thought he did a good job overall. He focused mostly on foreign policy during his speech. I did feel like some of his rhetoric on America’s position in the world sounded a little idealistic and simplistic (Woodrow Wilson would be proud). I wrote and article for the free press about his visit. I will post the link as soon as the article is published.

I have spent much of the weekend studying for midterms. I am taking my Chinese midterm next Friday, and my Chinese history and culture midterm this Wednesday. Saturday however, around 10 at night, I ditched studying and went sledding with some friends. We went to this giant hill, and enjoyed ourselves for around an hour. We were flying down the slope at astonishing speed. I’ll have to do it again sometime. Who said college was all work and no play?

Tonight I watched the Superbowl. The Colts won! They’re World Champions! I am especially happy for Tony Dungy. He is the first black coach to win the superbowl, and the first person to win as both a player and a coach. It is quite an accomplishment. Just last year, he lost his son too, and he has bounced back in a tremendous way. I am so happy for him, and my hometown team now.

Next week should be interesting as well. I will be going to a debate tournament on Friday, so I will get to see Boston. On the weekend, Dartmouth will have winter carnival, which is supposed to be a festive occasion. I look forward to posting my reaction to this event. Lastly, I have to pick classes for next term, so I will do that Monday.

Looking back at this week

2007-01-28T12:38:00.000-08:00

It has been a really interesting past week. There is an effort afoot to impeach the current student body president. Apparently, some student assembly member has a vendetta against the President. The student assembly member had been serving alcohol to underage students, and was reported to the administration. In retaliation, this student is trying to impeach the president.

To be fair, there are other reasons that some wish to impeach the president. He ran on a promise that he would do something about sexual assault on campus. Many believe he has done nothing to accomplish this goal. Some also feel that he is blocking a revision to ethics standards here. One of the key facets of this reform was a change in the burden of proof. The old standard required just a majority of evidence of guilt, much as in a criminal trial. The new standard requires more proof of guilt. Of particular concern on campus was a provision which would allow a male accused of rape to question his accuser.

There is a clear division between the genders on whether this should be allowed. Most of the guys I talk to think it makes sense, while a lot of feminists I have talked to have qualms. In the wake of the Duke Lacrosse case, many guys are worried that they too could be accused of a rape they didn’t commit, and have their lives ruined. Many girls are also understandably concerned that putative rape victims will be scared to come forward if they have to face their attacker in a hearing. It is certainly a difficult issue.

Tommorow, I have a midterm in my historical linguistics class, so I am studying for that. Friday, I will have a midterm in my Chinese class. On Wednesday, presidential candidate John Edwards is coming to campus, so I am going to hear him speak. Chris Dodd and Mike Gravel have already come so far, but Edwards is the first candidate with a serious chance to speak. I look forward to sharing my reactions to his speech.

Onward and Upward

2007-01-22T14:11:00.000-08:00

I’ve had an enjoyable time this last week, for the most part. On Sunday, I met US Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn) who is trying to garner the democratic nomination for President. He gave a short speech at the Rockefeller center, and then took questions. He favors universal health care and wants to cap the number of soldiers in Iraq. All in all, he is mostly a traditional democratic candidate. It remains to be seen whether he has a chance against better-known candidates such as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or John Edwards. In the coming months, many more Presidential candidates will be coming to campus.

For most of Friday and Saturday I helped run the Dartmouth Parliamentary debate tournament. I was assistant tabulation director as well as a judge. My work as tabulation director was very tedious. I had to slowly read the results of each debate so it could be entered into a machine. Judging was fun. I was able to see how judges adjudicate rounds, and this knowledge will help me be a better debater. On an interesting note, I also found out that Army has a debate team. Who knew?

I didn’t have too much work last week. I didn’t have any tests or papers, though I had to learn quite a few characters for my Chinese class, and do a couple of linguistics problems sets. Historical linguistics is a fascinating subject. We have studied for example, how Latin evolved into Spanish, French, and Portuguese. We have also studied how Arabic turned into Maltese, and how languages come to borrow words from other languages.

My Chinese history and culture class is going to be a lot of work this week. The teacher assigns a tremendous amount of unexciting material to read. We have already read a great deal of Confucius. I find his work to be dull and uninspiring for the most part. However, learning about Chinese perceptions of health and medicine was very interesting today. I look forward to posting again soon.

First full week back at school

2007-01-14T12:18:00.000-08:00

It has been an exciting week. I am finally starting to settle into my classes. For my historical linguistics class, I had to learn lots of material from the introductory linguistics class so I could understand the necessary terminology. This class is fascinating. We are studying the ways languages evolved over time.

My other two classes of course are Chinese history and culture, and Chinese language. I have the same professor for both of these. Learning Chinese characters is getting easier to do, though I must still invest a great a great deal of time to write and rewrite the characters. The grammar is getting more challenging however. In my Chinese History and culture class, we are reading Confucius, and learning early Chinese history. I have to say, Confucius is pretty boring. My professor also keeps assigning more and more work. Just this weekend, she e-mailed members of the class to gives us additional assignments to the one on the syllabus.

This week, I got to hear the first of many presidential candidates come to New Hampshire. His name was Mike Gravel, and he was a two-term senator from Alaska. He filibustered the draft in the 1970s, and read the pentagon papers into the congressional record. He is a democrat who supports the fair tax, and what he calls the national iniative, a plan to let regular people have a greater voice in government. In the next months, many more Presidential candidates will be coming to campus. Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack is coming next Saturday. I’m excited for primary season!

On the weekend, I went to Middlebury for a debate. My partner and I faced five excellent teams. We lost most of them, but the rounds were certainly close. We also had some very shoddy judges. One of them was apparently under the impression that slavery was not one of the causes of the civil war. On that note, I actually met a girl from Virginia on our team who still calls the civil war the “war of northern aggression.” Very interesting.

Right now I am doing some major studying, since I was away Friday and Saturday. Shortly I will take a break and engage in a snowball fight on the green. Snow is finally coming down, and luckily it is the sort which can easily be packed into snowballs. It will be a nice study break. I look forward to posting next week.

An answer to your question

2007-01-06T21:09:00.000-08:00

Thanks for reading my blog, and I hope you find it informative. Yes I do have a job. I work around 8 hours a week in the equipment room at the gym. It is an easy job, and I am able to study while I work which is good. When you go to college, you should look for a campus job which will allow you to work and study at the same time. Look for jobs in the library, etc. The academics here are very intense, but I find time to relax and enjoy my friends. The key is to plan ahead and get your work done. Parties are mostly on the weekends here. People like to study during the day, and hang out and party at night. There is plenty of time to enjoy yourself. Academics though, must be your first priority. Good luck in the college search, and I hope you enjoy your remaining time in high school.

Starting the new term

2007-01-06T21:06:00.000-08:00

I am back on campus now, and starting classes. This term, I am taking a class in Chinese culture and history, the Chinese language, and historical linguistics. Today, I did homework for the first time this term. I am learning Chinese characters for Monday, and read in my linguistics textbook. I also bought my books. Boy were they expensive! All told they cost me almost $300. College sure isn’t cheap.

It has been good seeing people after the month-long winter break. I have heard their stories about visiting friends and family, and shared mine. We are all excited about the things various organizations on campus are doing this term. Today, I went to an information session about a service trip to the gulf to help victims of hurricane Katrina. We would be building houses, and revitalizing neighborhoods. It sounds like an awesome opportunity, and I am planning to submit an application.

The event of the week however, was a visit to the investment bank Goldman Sachs. The trip was sponsored by the Dartmouth Black Business Association. We went down on Thursday to New York City. It was my first time of any consequence in the city. I saw Times Square and the spot where the world trade towers once stood. We stayed overnight Thursday, and then went into Goldman Sachs on Friday.

We listened to several presentations, and got to shadow different employees. I shadowed somebody in the investment management division of the bank. I learned quite a bit that day. I learned about the bond market, and asset management. I also learned about the lifestyle of investment bankers. They work hard! Many of them work 12 hours a day or more. 14 is quite common. Since investment banking is driven by the needs of the client, bankers can be forced to stay late into the night or early into the night. I wonder how they balance family/life with the career. All in all, it was a very informative trip, and gave me alot to think about.

I'm back!

2007-01-02T17:16:00.000-08:00

It has been more than a month since I have last posted. I apologize for this absence, but now I'm back. I did well on all of my finals, and managed to score a good gpa last term. This term, I am taking a chinese class, a historical linguistics class, and a chinese history and culture class. I will go back to college tommorow, and I am excited to see my friends again, and start the new term. I will post again to let you know what my impressions are of my new classes. Have a good new year

I'm back! Yay!

2006-12-01T11:47:00.000-08:00

I’m back! I haven’t posted in the past couple of weeks. Last week I went home to see my family during thanksgiving. It was great to see them all again, and to get my fill of turkey and other assorted foods. I was also able to sleep a lot. At college, I rarely sleep more than six hours. But at home, I was able to sleep as much as I wanted. All in all, thanksgiving break was a nice breather from the rigors of college life.

Now I am currently preparing for final exams, and finishing up term papers. On Monday, I handed in a twelve page paper on German submarine warfare during the first world war. I am in the midst now of revising a paper on methods of pedagogy for my education seminar. I have worked hard on both of these papers, and am expecting good grades on them.

I am also studying for finals. Tomorrow, I will be taking the final exam for my history class. To prepare, I am reviewing the lecture notes, and making notes about all of our course readings. I will also attend a group study session later tonight to get ready. On Monday, I will take the final in my Chinese class. I need to know over 300 characters, and several grammatical points. To prepare for this exam, I am writing out all of the characters, and re-reading the grammatical notes we have gone over in class.

Life hasn’t been all work and no play though. Yesterday some of my friends and I got together and played squash. I have never played before, and it was definitely a fun experience. Some of the best parts of my college life have also been the conversations I have with fellow students. Yesterday, a friend and I discussed whether traditionalism or progressivism was the best method to educate children in school. We also ended up talking about politics, religion, and racism on campus, something which has been an issue here lately.

Many native Americans have felt like they have been treated unfairly here lately. There was a “cowboys and Indians” party which many of them disapproved. A few weeks ago, some drunken students disrupted a drum ceremony. Also many are upset that some want to use the “Indian” as the school mascot. Just a few days ago, the conservative Dartmouth Review, one of the school papers had a cover with the caption “the natives are getting restless.” You can see the cover here: http://www.dartreview.com/. It was highly offensive and tacky. The school responded by having a solidarity rally on Wednesday. Apparently, the school is also getting bad press in the national media.

For the record, I have found most of the people here to be welcoming and open-minded. I have friends of all races and religions. Sadly however, there is a very small, but vocal contingent of students here who do hold racist beliefs. They give the rest of the school a bad name. I am sorry to end on this note, but I must return to studying for finals. I will post again to let the reader know my reaction to my first set of finals.

A productive week

2006-11-18T19:10:00.000-08:00

I have accomplished a great deal this week. I managed to finish my research paper on German submarine warfare for my World War I class. This was quite an exhaustive activity. I spent several days locating primary and secondary source documents to use. Next I constructed an outline of the paper, and earlier this week, I sat down and typed it out. I have also had someone in the composition center proofread it, and I am happy with the way it has turned out.

We also got our schedule of classes for next term. I am taking a class on historical linguistics which fulfills my quantitative distribution requirement, a class on Chinese history and culture and a class on the Chinese language. All in all, I am looking forward to starting classes next quarter.

I’m also having a lot of fun this week. Last night, some friends and I went to go see the new bond film Casino Royale. It was a good movie, and I really like the new actor; he reminds me a little of Sean Connery. The night was not without some drama however. The cab my friends and I took ended up costing double what we were initially told. Not only that, but the movie theater cancelled the show time we had planned on going to. So we were stuck in nowheresville, New Hampshire for two hours. We did make the best of the situation, and still managed to enjoy the night.

Next week I am going home to see my family for thanksgiving break, for which I am immensely excited. When I get back it will be time to start studying for finals. I will post again soon.

catching up

2006-11-10T12:08:00.000-08:00

I apologize for not posting last week. I have been extremely busy these last weeks, but I look forward to sharing recent events in my life again.

Last weekend I went to another debate tournament at Brown. The experience wasn’t quite as rewarding this time, however. I had people judging my partners who clearly lacked any capacity for reasoning or logic. One of the judges even had awful English, and I wonder if he was able to understand the arguments my partner and I made. Two of my teammates did however get second place, so I was very happy for them. While I was at Brown, I also got to see Providence, Rhode Island. It is a vibrant city, and there was a lot to do around Brown. In fact the most fun I had last weekend was when I was out exploring the local area.

I have been doing a lot of important assignments this week. Right now, I am working on an important research paper for my World War I class. I have decided to focus on German submarine warfare. I have been in the library a great deal this week, looking for primary and secondary sources. I hope to have an outline for the paper by this weekend.

I am also revising my paper for my government seminar. I worked really hard on my first draft, edited it several times, and even took it to the composition center. Yet all this effort only garnered me a B- on the paper. I was certainly disappointed. To compound my frustration, the professor wrote that I had produced a “very fine essay.” I will work really hard on it this weekend, and hopefully turn in a final draft which gets me a higher grade.

Perhaps the most noteworthy event this week was when I signed up for classes for the winter term. This was actually a more arduous process than I had imagined. I looked up student reviews of professors, and talked to upperclassmen about the best classes to take. I ended up signing up for a historical linguistics class, a Chinese history and culture class, and a Chinese language class. I think these classes will be very interesting.

Fortunately, I have managed my time better this week. I managed to sleep for seven or eight hours most days this week. I was also more efficient at getting my homework done. I need all the rest I can get. This next week will be very grueling since I will be composing my research paper for my history class and studying for finals. I look forward to posting again.

Midterm week!

2006-10-29T16:08:00.000-08:00

This week has certainly been busy. On Friday, I took a midterm in my Chinese class. This turned out to be much easier than I expected it to be. We had to know all the vocabulary from the previous weeks’ lessons, as well as the grammar points. I studied for several hours to prepare for the exam, and I am pretty sure I did well. I will find out tomorrow in any case.

I also got my midterm back in my history class. I got a B+, which is pretty good. I had spent hours studying for this one too, and was hoping for an A. The test had five pictures we had to identify and contextualize in World War I history. We then had to write an essay on the reasons why men continued to fight, even as they watched so many of their comrades die. I did quite well on the identifications, but I lost some points on the essay. The professor apparently expected me to reference the course reading more than I did. Oh well.

I have done more than study this week too. The most significant activity I did this week was a debate at Yale. We went down on Friday, and returned Saturday night. It was a little bit of a different format than I’m used to. There are four teams in a round, and it is supposed to resemble the way people debate in the British parliament. There were people from all over the world here. I went up against teams from Canada, and Ireland. Teams also flew in from Stanford in California. The competition was understandably stiff. Everybody was extremely well-read and eloquent. It was certainly a good learning experience.

I got to see a little bit of Yale while I was down there. The campus is beautiful. The gothic style architecture meshes well with its urban environment in New Haven. There were lots of restaurants in the immediate vicinity of the campus with cuisine ranging from Chinese to Thai, to Mexican. New Haven has gotten a lot of bad press for its level of crime in the past, but the part I saw seemed fun and safe. However, I only saw the area immediately around the campus, and did not venture into other parts, so I am not in a position yet to say whether New Haven truly deserves its bad reputation.

It is getting steadily more difficult to manage my time. There are so many extra-curricular activities I want to get involved in. I am also enrolled in demanding classes which require many hours of study. Then there are all sorts of other things which take away time. There are parties, and trips to the dining hall, and conversation with friends, and phone calls home. All of these eat up a lot of time. I am currently only sleeping about four or five hours a day. I will have to find a way to balance everything I’m doing and get more sleep! I look forward to posting again soon.

an update on life

2006-10-20T21:21:00.000-07:00

Academics have been getting steadily more grueling. Today, I took my first college midterm in my World War I history class. We were asked to identify and contextualize five slides having to do with the First World War. Then I had to write an essay outlining three reasons why soldiers kept fighting, even as they experienced horrific casualties and saw no end in sight. All in all, it was not too difficult. I also had a test in Chinese. The real midterm is next week, so I will have to spend a lot of time reviewing characters.

I also have several long term assignments coming up. For my history class, I must begin researching for my twelve page research paper. I will spend some time in the library tomorrow looking for primary source documents. I also have two eight page papers due for my government seminar due soon. I will have to begin writing some sort of preliminary outline for these assignments.

This week was also my birthday. I was delighted that so many people remembered this year. My floor mates also baked me a cake and threw me a surprise party. It all made me feel very grateful and appreciative. The people here have been very friendly so far, and I already have a great group of friends.

I continue to be amazed by all the opportunities here. Just last night, I went to an information session for a study abroad program in Beijing. Students study for ten weeks at Beijing Normal University. They are able to explore the city and master Chinese. The class also takes a trip to central and southern China, and the students have the opportunity to see both the Silk Road and the Great Wall. Even better, the college pays for this!

There are also so many other things I want to do. There is a fencing team and a formula racing team which race cars and then races them against other schools. One of the Business associations is taking kids skiing in Colorado during the winter. This association is also taking kids to Boston and New York this year. The Debate team is traveling out to California. And speaking of skiing, Dartmouth has some of the best skiing in the area. The fencing team travels around the country. There are all sorts of amazing things here, and I will never be able to do them all.

I am also adjusting in other ways. I am figuring out how to balance all of these exciting extracurricular activities with the demands of class and work. I am slowly but surely learning that you should always try and sleep more than four hours a night, even though you’re in college. I have also started taking vitamins to boost my immune system. There seems to be a nasty cold going around right now, which I hope to avoid catching, as I have already been sick this term. I look forward to posting next week.

Homecoming!

2006-10-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

I am bracing for one of the most exciting college traditions ever: homecoming. At Dartmouth, students build a huge bonfire. Around 6:00 every freshman at the college assembles. We will then run around the bonfire 110 times since we are the class of 2010. Afterwards, there will be several parties, and we will get a chance to hang out with alumni who have come back to campus after all these years. Tomorrow, we will have our homecoming football game. We are hosting Holy Cross, and it looks like our team has a good shot of winning.

The week has been eventful otherwise. I did lots of reading for my classes, and just got back from a Chinese test today. I have a big essay for my government seminar coming up about Rousseau’s Emile, a treatise on education. I also have midterms coming up next week in my classes, so I’ll have to start studying for them soon. My professors have been vague about what will be on those tests, which makes me a little nervous.

The weather this week has been gorgeous, and it has been wonderful to see the fall foliage. There are browning leaves all around campus. I have been able to play basketball, tennis, and a little soccer this week because of how nice it was outdoors. It will get extremely cold here very soon, but I’m sure I’ll make the best of it.

Otherwise, I look forward to having a fun, exciting weekend, and resting from this week’s work. I will post again soon.

What I've been up to this week

2006-10-06T08:45:00.000-07:00

This week is finally over! It has definitely been extremely grueling. I just got back from my Chinese class, where we had an exhaustive exam over everything we have studied thus far in the course. The test included a good number of characters, grammar, and translation into English. Now that I am done with the test, I immediately have to begin learning the characters for lesson 3. This class is definitely giving me my money’s worth.

At the same time I was getting ready for my test in Chinese, I was also busy writing two research papers. The first one was for my history class. I was assigned a country, and asked to determine its culpability for the outbreak of the First World War. My other essay concerned Plato’s Republic, which we have been reading for class. I wrote about what subjects Plato would have me study if he were my freshman advisor. Both were interesting assignments.

Plenty has been going on outside of class this week. I am continually surprised by the huge number of organizations on campus. There is a formula one racing group, improvisational comedy groups, etc. There is just about anything here that a student could want to do. I have continued my involvement in the parliamentary debate team, and I am hard at work on another article for one of the school papers. My extracurricular activities have been extremely fun and rewarding already.

I have also dealt with things I never have had to think about much before. I have been sick much of this past week, and so I had to figure out which medicines to take to feel better. This actually took me a while to figure out. I also learned that it is not a good idea to sleep for only four hours for three nights continually. Even college students need sleep! I look forward to posting again soon.

Week in Review

2006-09-28T20:38:00.000-07:00

I am almost finished with the week. On friday, I have a test in Chinese, and I have to have completed Plato's Republic. Things have gone well in my classes, though they have been very demanding in terms of workload. I averaged probably 90 pages of reading a night for my government seminar, and probably a little more for my history class. I have also memorized 40 chinese radicals, and around 25 characters. I also translated a chinese sentence for the first time, which was rewarding.

I have also taken advantage of all of the amazing extracurricular activities here. I took a position with one of the school papers, and I joined the College Democrats. I also joined the Parliamentary debate team. This has been my most fun activity so far. The team is taking us to Boston for a meet, and I will get to do some sightseeing. I am looking forward to tommorow immensely.

I am getting to know the people here better as well. I grow closer to the people on my floor with each passing day, and I am also meeting new people as I start different activities. The people are really friendly here. They regularly invite strangers to come eat lunch or go somewhere. I look forward to meeting even more of the interesting people here. Life is good for now.

why dartmouth?

2006-09-22T14:35:00.000-07:00

Many of you may be wondering why I chose to come to Dartmouth. Why did I go so far away from home to such an expensive school? I will answer that question in this post.

Since education is the most important reason we pick a college, I will elaborate on why I feel a Dartmouth education is so worth it. For starters, Dartmouth is a really small environment with lots of caring teachers who are also distinguished in their field. For example, there are economics professors here who have advised Presidents of the United States, and they teach undergraduates. Each person gets lots of personal attention from amazing teachers.

One specific academic reason I chose Dartmouth was the foreign language program. People here learn to speak languages really fast. After just one year in a foreign language course, you can become proficient in the language. It took me four years of high school to obtain basic proficiency in Spanish. And after just two ten week terms, you can study abroad here, and the college will fund it. Students here go to China and Morocco and France and everywhere in between. I am planning to take both German and Mandarin here because of the outstanding language and study abroad programs.

Tuition, room and board can cost $50,000 a year at Ivy-League Schools. There is no a way a kid from a regular middle class background like me could afford this. There are doubtless many of you who think you could never afford a school like Dartmouth. Yet, I was able to come because of a generous financial aid policy. If you need financial aid to come here, you will get as much as you need. In the end, Dartmouth was more generous than almost all the other schools that I applied to. And if you make under a certain amount of money, Dartmouth will let you come for free. Do not let cost prevent you from applying to a school like this.

Lastly, the benefits of Dartmouth extend beyond the four years on campus. When I graduate, I’ll have an extensive alumni support system to help me get into graduate school or find a career. Dartmouth alumni seem uniquely willing to help students out. Members of the class of 1960 are here welcoming my class to campus. Dartmouth alumni love their experience here and continue to generously support both the school and the students. These are just some of the reasons I chose Dartmouth.

The Academics

2006-09-22T14:25:00.000-07:00

Going into college I had questions about the academics. How much work would be involved? How long would I need to study? Many of you are wondering the same thing about ivy-league colleges. I have just spent my first days in class, and look forward to answering these questions.

I must start by saying that there is an incredible amount of work here. For my chinese class, I have to memorize 23 new characters and write them 12 times each, memorize dialogues, and master new vocabulary by monday. For my history class, I just read a 15o page book on world war I, and have a new book to read by monday. In my government seminar, I have both an essay and reading due on monday.

Long term, I have a long research paper due in my history class as well as two "short" eight page papers. I also have several longer essays to compose for my government class on topics such as issues in contepmporary education. On top of this, I also will have midterms soon, since Dartmouth is on the quarter system.

So the work here academically is definitely not for the faint of heart. A girl I know spent over three hours on Chinese alone! And she has two other classes. Most students spend several hours studying and preparing for the next day's class. I look forward to sharing more about the academics as I take more classes, and experience different departments.

Actually starting school

2006-09-19T07:14:00.000-07:00

Orientation is finally over. I have picked my classes and met with my academic advisor. Tomorrow I will begin classes. School starts so late here. It will be September 20 when I actually set foot in classes. I am taking a foreign language class, a history class, and a government class. The department open houses all showcased teachers excited to teach undergraduates. The classes themselves also looked very interesting. So I am looking forward to what I hope will be a satisfying intellectual experience. I will write about how my classes are and whether they have measured up to my expectations soon.

The people so far

2006-09-16T07:43:00.001-07:00

The other day, I promised to go more in depth about the type of people I have met during my time so far. Before I came here I wondered a great deal about what kind of people these would be.

I came expecting to find mostly spoiled rich kids from the east coast. I must say that I have been pleasantly surprised thus far. The kids I have met seem down to earth, and I have come across very few arrogant people. No one has bragged about their accomplishments in high school, or their high SAT scores, etc. This is dramatically different from my stereotypes about Ivy-League schools.

I also want to note the diversity of the people here I have met. I do not just mean racially here, although I have met people from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds. What is most astonishing is the diversity of background and interest. In my two weeks here, I have met a kid with a wise guy new york accent and a Nigerian with a British accent just to name a few. Everybody has an opinion on everything, and there are always interesting people to talk to. I have had good conversations with kids here on topics ranging from basketball to politics. This is not to say there are not "weird" people. Everyone is also quircky (possibly more so than at most schools). Overall, I definitely like the people here so far.

I have unfortunately had less contact with professors. I have been to a couple of department open houses during orientation, and have found the professors engaging and genuinely excited to teach. I will let everyone know more about the teachers here once I begin all of my classes on Wednesday. This is all for now, though I will post again this weekend about why I chose to come to Dartmouth.

My first experience at Dartmouth

2006-09-12T13:10:00.000-07:00

I apologize that it has been so long since I have posted here. For days before I left home, I had been awaiting the start of my career at Ivy-League Dartmouth. What would the people be like? How would I fit in? Instead of delving right in to the experience however, I embarked on a pre-orientation hike. These are called DOC trips (Dartmouth Outing Club). This is Dartmouth’s way of trying to get us to meet other people before class starts.

I was divided into a group of seven with two trip leaders. I went on what was classified as a “leisurely trip.” My group stayed in a cabin, and we hiked during the day. I certainly met some interesting people, and was able to establish a good bond with them. I will go more into depth about the kind of people I have met on this Ivy-League campus.

All in all, this was an effective way of introducing me to the Dartmouth community, and I am glad I went. I look forward to posting another message about what life is actually like on campus very soon.

Why I'm here

2006-08-31T14:48:00.000-07:00

Every year, over 110,000 talented kids apply to the eight ivy-league schools. It's a tough process. I know because I was one of those kids last year. I am starting this blog to give prospective applicants and people who are just curious an inside glimpse at what life is like at an ivy-league school (I am at Dartmouth) What is the education like? What are my fellow students like? Is going to an ivy-league school worth the enormous cost? These are the questions I hope to answer for all concerned. I hope you find this blog informative.