Yeah, I tripped

If you've been following, I was in EB's fall production of Pride and Prejudice as the wonderfully pretentious (but really a softy on the inside) Mr. Darcy.  This I'm going to cite as my reason number one for my lack of posteral activity.  I realized going into drama that it would be a time commitment, but I had never really experienced what "Tech Week" meant (hell) until this year.  Rewind all the way to three weeks ago: that week was our week of rehearsal-until-seven-pm.  That week I discovered that my inability to focus on homework when there were so many fun and distracting people around me was definitely going to bite me in the ass.  After night 3 of staying up way past my bed time to get all my work done, I decided to get a little more efficient.  I managed to get a little more sleep, but I was still woefully unprepared for what was to come.

I had heard of Tech Week only in agonized groans and slightly annoyed explanations up until that point ("No, I can't hang out, I have tech week." "That sounds like fun, but I won't have time, it's tech week.")  Monday night I finally got home around 10:30ish, exhausted and having managed to complete pretty much no homework at all.  I soldiered on though, finished my work, and slogged through school on Tuesday.  Tuesday night wasn't as bad (I had started to get used to this little sleep), and practice that night came with the added bonus of getting our costumes.

As Vikky aptly pointed out, my character was a little bit of a costume prostitute (those weren't exactly the words she used, but I have to think of the children).  I had three jackets and five vests to wear throughout the play, although I never had as crazy a costume change as some of the girls.  There were dresses sitting back stage for Kat, Anna, and Devin to jump into in between their scenes, but I got to leisurely put on my vests and jackets in the cast room.  The costumes were very cool, and I'm definitely thinking of bringing back the mutton chops, swept back hair, and cravat look for the 21st century (I swear it would be sick with a vest and jeans).

A quick dress rehearsal was all we managed Tuesday, and we didn't even have the time to finish.  Wednesday I took a mental health day from school, and came in for my last drama rehearsal (potentially ever, at least at the high school).  Wednesday's rehearsal consisted of a rehearsal and then a dress rehearsal, and just before getting on stage for my first scene of the dress rehearsal, I realized that the next time I was standing where I stood, I'd be going in front of an audience.  That rehearsal was pretty terrible for me; I forgot lines, nearly laughed at a bad time, and to top it all off was my wonderful screwup of Kat and my final scene.

Spoiler alert: if you haven't read Pride and Prejudice yet, Darcy and Elizabeth kiss at the end.  And of course, that kiss was the final scene of our play.  It was a romantic moment, Kat and I at down center, the lights beginning to dim and the spotlight highlighting us.  We said our last few lines, I took her hands, took a step closer to her, and tripped into our kiss.  Oops.  Neither of us could hold it, and we both cracked up mid-kiss.  I do have to say though that the trip was not entirely my fault; our stage rotated, it was made of three sets built on essentially a giant lazy susan with platforms built in front.  Where the lazy susan met the platforms there was a gap of about two inches, and weight on either side would push one side down, leaving a height gap as well.  That night we happened to end up right along that gap, and I didn't realize that my foot settled into the gap during the last few lines.  I tripped into the kiss that was supposed to be our finale the night before my first performance ever.  But then Jon told me something that managed to make the whole trainwreck of that dress rehearsal seem like a good thing: "Messy dress good show."

It turned out Jon was right.  Our opening night was great, even though there were a few mistakes here and there.  I had the jitters, of course, although I managed to talk myself down for the most part.  Kat's coping mechanism was pacing in circles, which actually managed to distract me from my own nerves.  My first scene went fairly well, except for the teacups.  When I get nervous, my hands shake.  Perfectly normal reaction, but it can look pretty bad if you're holding a little notecard (a la my closing argument for Mock Trial a few years ago) or if you're holding a teacup.  With a little saucer.  When the two met, there was a nice little china 'clink', but combined with my tremors that 'clink' turned into Morse code.  I tried my best not to let it phase me, but lifting the teacup to my mouth I was sure that I was obvious that I was shaking.  I felt better as soon as I got off stage and Zach turned to me and said "those teacups were a bad idea."  At least I wasn't alone!  After that, I decided that my shaking was a "character choice," because I had entered the scene pretending to be cold anyway.

The rest of the first show was amazing fun.  I sat backstage and listened to the lines, the laughs, and the drama, loving every minute of it.  Of course, I managed to mess up some of my lines when proposing to Kat for the first time, but the scene was still one of my favorite scenes.  I loved acting the moment when the reality of the rejection sets in, and the hurt and regret can't be covered with anger or arrogance any more.  Walking past Kat, turning and saying "I wish you.. every happiness," and then closing the door was a powerful moment, but my favorite moment of all was the pause, and then the look back at the door, overwhelmed by what just happened.  It was such a fun, emotional scene to play that I would actually get back to the cast room still a little shaken.  Those were the moments that made me love this play, for the love story and even for the very British, dry humor.

Every night after that first show got better for me, as my nerves started to fade and the play became more important than my fear.  I probably owe a lot of that confidence boost to the reception I got after the show on the first night.  I'd only ever experienced the "congratulate the actors as the come out from backstage" from the congratulate-or side, never the congratulate-ee side.  So when I saw my friends and got a (great) group hug, I realized how much we had accomplished as a cast.  After every performance, hearing "good job!" "you were great!" "that was spectacular!" didn't inflate my ego, it made me proud to be part of the beautiful thing that the group of people I had spent countless hours with for the past months created.  So a special thanks to Kat and Becky for convincing me to take the plunge, to the all the drama seniors who welcomed me into the drama family, and to everyone who made that experiences one of the best I've ever had.  You're all amazing people, and whether or not I do the Spring musical, I'll always love the time I spent with you all.

Oops.

Wow, so it's been about three weeks since my last post!  I realize I've been totally remiss in my blogging responsibilities, but I promise I'll make it up to you all with at least two posts about my crazy last few weeks.  Between the play and family situations, I've barely had time to sit and think let alone blog.  So here goes, first post coming up shortly!

When We Were Little

My friend Steven just posted some pictures of us when we were in second grade:

We were doing a competition called BrainQuest (tagline: "It's O.K. to be Smart!"), which was like trivia questions.  We had three classes in second grade, and each one had someone representing it: Steven, Mike, and I were the three who got picked.  It was a lot of fun, and I won at the school level, but got whooped at the regional level (I was never all that good at trivia, sorry Academic Team).  

These pictures are a fun reminder of how much (and how little) we've all changed since we were little kids.  There are always a bunch of people on Facebook with profile pictures of them as little kids, and now with the "memories" section on Facebook I've been seeing old photos pretty often.  I was rocking that plaid button up shirt and the bangs, Steve had the up-do and the vest, and Mike looked very little.  Appearance-wise, we've all changed a lot.  My hair is longer and curly now, Steve's is shorter, and we're all a lot taller (although even then I was the tallest).  But looking deeper than appearances is different.  I was a nerd then and I'm a nerd now, but I don't know if Steve or Mike would say the same thing.  I feel like I've gained a lot of confidence, and I'm much more comfortable with who I am than I was in second grade (I probably didn't even know who that was back then).  I'm more outgoing and (maybe) less weird.

I don't think I'm this kid anymore, 

although I still love wearing capes and the curls are making a comeback

I feel like everybody has changed since we were little.  We're shaped by our experiences and our friends; some people turn into nerds (cough Amy cough), some people turn into athletes, and some people end up with a not so great crowd.  Whether the changes are for better or for worse, life changes us.  Now we're facing the next step in our lives: college.  What I really wonder is how much that will change me.  I don't really know what I want to major in, and really in the long run I only have a vague idea of what I want to do with my life.  College is a different world, and as much as I've had tastes of it, I've always had the understanding at the summer programs that there was an end that was very close.  At the summer programs I wasn't starting a new life, I was just experimenting.  But getting to college, as I've talked about, is an opportunity to reinvent ourselves.  

What would it be like if I could meet the old me and the future me?  How different would we be?  What could we tell each other?  Sadly, time is linear as far as we're concerned, so I'll never get an answer to those questions.  But I can always try to remember who I was and how far I've come.

Your thoughts:

Is it really O.K. to be smart?

How have you changed since you were a kid?

How do you think college will change you?

What would you say to your future self, and what do you think he/she would say to you?

Food for Thought

I'm going to start adding a new section at the bottom of my posts, inspired by Anna.  It'll be a few discussion questions to get some more comments going.  I know a lot of you visit, but don't leave comments, so hopefully this will give you guys something to comment on!  Comments are really satisfying, I like thinking that my posts are doing more than just being read, that they're also provoking thought!

Your thoughts:
Should my questions look like this?
What should I call the section? (because I don't want to steal Anna's name for it)
Will you answer the questions I put up?

My UPenn Visit!

We had off today and yesterday for NJEA conferences, so I seized the opportunity and took the train down to Philly to spend some time at the University of Pennsylvania!  I took courses there in the summer of '09 (see here), and since a lot of my friends (including my roommate) were a year older than me, I now have a bunch of friends who are freshmen at Penn.  I took the train from New Brunswick to Trenton, and then from Trenton to 30th Street Wednesday night and met my roommate Matt at the station.  Matt was nice enough to let me stay in his roommate, and I met his new roommate David, who is a very cool guy.  Wednesday night I ate dinner at Beijing (terrible Chinese college food that's way cheap) with Ellen, James, and Matt, and then hung out in Matt's room.  Abe came and joined us a little later in the night, and we talked for the rest of the night about politics and college stuff.  I slept on an airbed that Matt's parents had brought a few weeks earlier, so I brought sheets and was actually pretty comfortable.

Thursday was classes, starting with Astrophysics with Prof. Bernardi and then Russian History with Prof. Holquist.  Astrophysics was a lot of fun, we talked about stars and how we analyze things like distance, temperature, and luminosity.  It was a surprising amount of math and geometry, which I found really cool, although I guess not so surprising once you realize that it's astrophysics. Russian History was really intense, and in that class more than Astro I could tell that I had missed a good part of the class, probably because I caught Astro just as they were starting a new unit.  The rest of the day was pretty relaxed, I ate lunch with Matt, Arielle (another friend from the summer), and Arielle's boyfriend Kevin.  Fun times, and then I went to talk to Prof. Sen. about recommendations and all that jazz.  It was nice to catch up with him again, he's a really nice guy and was an excellent professor (not to mention that he advises for the Politics, Philosophy, and Economics department, which is likely the major I'll be pursuing).  The rest of the day was pretty relaxed again; we went to Commons for dinner with Lizzy, one of Matt's floormates.  It apparently was national apple harvest day, so they had wicked (wicked) desserts.  Strudel, pie, little iced cakes, muffins, turnovers, and vanilla ice cream with hot apples and cinnamon.  Shwow.  Glad to know that dining won't be a problem.

Friday was Biological Basis of Behavior with Dr. Medina pretty early in the morning.  I went to breakfast with James (it was his class) and then went to lecture, which was pretty short, only about an hour.  The lecture was a guest lecture on the neurological basis of sleep, which was very cool (and ironic because I was pretty tired).  The only bad thing about the guest lecture aspect was that I didn't get to hear Dr. Medina lecture, but it seemed like a very cool class nonetheless.  On my way back I bumped into Bhargavi, a girl from EB who was two years older than me.  It was really coincidental, we were both just going through the quad gates at the same time, so we had lunch together at Houston Market, the a la carte dining hall.  I left around 3:10, barely missed the 3:31 train from 30th Street Station because there was traffic and had to wait for the 3:49.  When I got to Trenton though, the announcer gave us the wrong info about the train to New Brunswick, which was actually on a *different* platform that wasn't accessible from where we were.  There was a whole platform full of people who missed the 5:03 train as a result, and we all had to wait until the 5:49 train, which was not fun.  I got home eventually though, and it's not like I was in any hurry.

My trip was a lot of fun, and I definitely know UPenn is still a really strong choice if I get in.  Really, UPenn is my first choice, but I didn't apply early decision because I didn't want to be locked into it if I get in.  I want to see what kind of money I get from other schools, see where else I get in, and just generally play the college game.  I seriously hope that the decision not to ED won't bite me in the ass in the future; I'm a legacy, which helps the most when applying early, and if I don't get in regular I'll probably always blame the fact that I didn't apply early.  Penn is a great school, Philly's a cool city, and I'm more than excited for college.  The only bad news is that I've got the whole rest of senior year to go (plus applications, guh).  Visiting has gotten me more excited, and hopefully it will motivate me to do some more really good work on my applications!

Signatures

So Anna and I were not paying attention in IPLE today and instead were practicing our signatures.  Anna was enjoying my fountain pen, and I was struggling to make my signature more consistent (Anna had the opposite problem, hers was "too neat").  I thought it was funny though, that I was trying to make my signature more neat while she was trying to make her signature more messy, even though both of our signatures really fit our personalities.  Signatures are very obvious badges of who we are, they represent us on legal documents and are just another level of personality on our names, which are already a big part of our identities (as I discussed here).  Reasonably, I want my signature to be consistent and cool, with some nice swoopy-ness and the right amount of messy.  I want it to reflect my personality, so it should be kind of big and maybe loopy.  Importantly though, I want to get it good enough that I sign it the same way every time.

For me though, consistency isn't that easy, because even my handwriting has a decent amount of inconsistency.  My handwriting depends on the pen I'm using, the paper it's on, my mood, lots of things.  But my handwriting is definitely reflective of my personality.  I like using a thick inky pen, and I have fairly slanted writing with strong vertical lines.  When I'm done writing on a page it looks really imposing and illegible, with a lot of slanted lines that stand out prominently.  It's a kind of quasi-cursive that's kind of loopy, very fluid, and pretty fast as well.  But I can't seem to manage to reproduce that effect on my signature.  My signature always somehow seems to be contrived, or too controlled, or too messy, or too something.  It's never the same, and it's never really right.

While I'm still jealous that Anna's handwriting is so neat and pristine, I still like my handwriting.  It's loose, it's fun, it's just a little bit aggressive, and I like to think it's very me.  Thank goodness though that I don't have the practice that I did last year though, handwriting 3+ pages of notes a little faster than weekly for APUSH.  That is an experience I'd rather not repeat.

Holmes

I've always been a big fan of Sherlock Holmes.  I read all of the books when I was a kid and I've always loved mystery stuff.  The BBC is awesome, and early House had a really good Sherlock Holmes vibe to it.  So I was naturally super excited when I saw that the BBC was making a new version of Sherlock!  It's set in the 21st century, but it still has a distinctly old school British feel.  I really really suggest it, it's awesome and it's free online.  Here's the link.

Try it out!

Cultural Differences

I went to a party tonight with my nerd friends, and it was good fun.  Lots of Asian people, and Aaron and I pretty much were the only white people (Yair and Jamie were there too).  About half way through the night we walked down the block over to our friend Jon's house.  Jon is also Asian, and after we walked in we starting going down into his basement.  About halfway down though, Jon's mom pointed at Aaron's shoes and said something along the lines of "take your shoes off please."  I realized at that point that I hadn't taken my shoes off either, but all of our friends had.

What's notable is that the white people (Aaron and I) weren't conditioned to take our shoes off when we entered houses as guests, but all of our Asian friends took their shoes off immediately.  This is something I've noticed with almost all of my Asian friends, and when I brought it up in our group we figured out what the difference was.  From our Asian friends' point of view, it was a simple cleanness thing, "I don't want my floors to get dirty so take off your shoes" is implied.  But for Aaron and I (although Aaron may have a different interpretation) a host has to direct the guest to take off their shoes, in order to allow them to be more comfortable in their house.  When you take off your shoes, you're saying a lot in our culture.  Taking off your shoes is very casual, not something we would do in a formal situation.  Taking off your shoes is also a sign that "I'm going to be staying here for a relatively long period of time."  I wouldn't take my shoes off if I knew I was only coming into a house briefly and then leaving.  Also, importantly I think, it's a power thing.  I'm not allowed to get comfortable in someone else's house unless they tell me to.  It would be bad manners to come in and plop comfortably in a chair in a stranger's house, I would sit a little more formally and gingerly.  Likewise, it's bad form for me to take off my shoes to make myself comfortable in your house without being told to do so.

The friends that I'm talking about are primarily Chinese, and speak Mandarin with their parents.  So I'm wondering whether this phenomenon is something that's just anecdotal, or whether it's really true.  People of all races feel free to throw in your interpretations, it can be a little cultural experiment.  It's interesting though how clearly cultural lines can be drawn with such a little thing though.  And (assuming my analysis is true) that little thing is a manifestation of a lot of other differences; for my Asian friends it was a simple cleanliness thing, but for me there was a whole guest/host power dynamic at play.  So comment with your thoughts, and add any other little cultural differences you've found over the years.

Good Things

First off, woo 2000 pageviews!  It's not really a large number, but it's exciting I think.  In other news, Homecoming tonight was actually impressively fun.  Dancing wasn't so bad, not too awkward, and I liked seeing my friends and hanging out with people.  Hopefully they'll keep doing this dance for the years to come, I imagine it was a pretty good fundraiser too.

Anyway, good things.  There's that adage, "good things come to those who wait."  I think I'm really starting to discover that that is load of crap.  First of all, just look at the verb: good things come.  Really?  Good things never come, they hang like ripe fruit on the top branches of the tree; yeah they might be delicious but it'll be a pain in the ass trying to get up there.  Good things don't come, but maybe good opportunities do.  Every once in a while I'll meet someone and wonder later what would have happened if I had tried a little harder to get to know them.  In relationships, in business, in life, I think really the good policy is to go for what you want.  Waiting for a good opportunity to come along is perfectly fine, but sometimes you have to realize "hey, this might not be a perfect situation, but I've got to work with it."  Wait for the door to open, but don't be too afraid to stick your foot in the crack before it closes on you again.

I probably spend too much waiting around, but that's mostly because I can't decide what I want.  It's hard to go for something when you don't know what to go for!  College decisions are going to be ridiculously tough I'm sure, and the application process is a serious pain.  I really need to start getting more motivated, the hardest part is getting up to those first few branches and then it's just a little climbing for some sweet goodness.

Speaking of waiting for good things to happen, this work isn't going to "happen" if I keep waiting around.  That's all for tonight!

I already know how this show ends.

Have you ever been watching tv, and you realize that since you're coming close to the end of the alloted time for a certain show, you must be getting close to the climax, or that there must be some plot twist soon?  You realize that, and then you're kind of disappointed, because you've figured out what will happen next.  That's how I feel about high school right now.  Everything I do has this fatalism to it because I know soon I'll be done with high school and I'll be moving on to college.  Some people call it senioritis, but it's sort of more pervasive than just "oh I don't want to do my work" and it's not that I don't want to do my work.

Soon we'll have our apps in (and it can't be soon enough) and there will be a lot less stress, and then eventually we'll know which colleges we'll be going to.  After that I feel like there's just a waiting period, where we'll be awkwardly between worlds while we wait to go to college.  And going to college really will be entering a whole new world.  Maybe it's just my impression because of the classes I'm taking, but I feel like I know almost everyone that I'm going to know in the high school.  Interactions have been played out, and now a lot of my friends have settled into comfortable couples.  Not that that is a bad thing, but I'm just starting to get really impatient for change in my life.  That's part of why I did drama this year I think; I wanted to try something really new and different (and I'm really glad I did).

Going to college will give us real opportunities to totally reinvent ourselves.  Maybe I'll try being Martin McCool, and speak with an Irish accent, just to see how it works (I doubt it will).  We'll meet totally new people, people who are completely different from the people we've gotten used to.  I've lived in New Jersey all my life, and I've hung out primarily with my particular brand of nerd-friends for as long as I can remember.  Who knows how different I'll be, and the truth is that I probably won't be different at all, but the point is that I can at least try out being different.  Maybe I'll still hang out with nerds, but I'll at least try to hang out with different kinds of nerds.

All this is part of the reason I want to go to a bigger school.  And when I say bigger, I mean 5000+.  Our high school is around 2400 people, and that's only in 3 years.  If I'm feeling socially claustrophobic here, then I'd definitely like a bigger school when I go to college.  I understand though, the danger of getting lost in a big school.  Maybe that's part of the problem at EB.  It's hard to join different groups of friends, because I just don't know anybody in those groups.  Drama was doable because I knew I could hang out with Kat or Alex at least, and now I've found that I really like everyone in drama.  I'm sure that would be the case for a lot of things, but it's really difficult to just throw yourself into a group of strangers.

That's the beauty of college though: everyone starts out as strangers.  For the first year at least, there aren't groups, there aren't cliques.  You never have to worry about feeling like the odd person out in a group of people who are really close, because there aren't any groups like that yet!  I remember my first few days at UPenn last summer, I surprised myself with how outgoing I was.  It's amazingly easy to just go up to whoever you want and say hello.  No one knows your history, no one knows how weird or awkward you were when you were a little kid (because we all really were).

I guess though that I shouldn't wish Senior year away.  To be fair, I am enjoying it so far, even though it is a total pain sometimes.  And while I'm looking forward to change, I'm sure that in a year (or even a few months) I'll be wishing that I had a little more time to spend with these awesome people in EB.  For better or for worse, I'm stuck with you people for another year, so I might as well enjoy it!

And hey, even though we know how the movie will end, it can still be fun to watch.

Hair

As those who see me daily know, I recently stopped shaving for about a week.  I ended up with blonde fur all over my face (and yes, some of it was red. I am indeed related to Finn McCool).  Eventually I got tired of it (too itchy) and I shaved it off except for the sideburns, which I left to grow for the play.  Speaking of the play, I also haven't been allowed to cut my hair, because our costumer wants my hair to be longer.  My hair was needing a cut when she told me that, and now it's a lot longer than it's ever been.  It's fun, if a lot more work in the morning.  It's starting to get curly now, which is new.  I'm not sure whether I like it, but I do feel like it has a little more character than my short hair.

My beard experience was kind of interesting.  There was plenty of face-rubbing, some nice some whatever and some kind of awkward (Jon P. Chen!).  Ultimately though I shaved it off because I felt a little silly with facial hair when I still view myself as a kid.  I remember being on the bus once and seeing a kid get off who had scraggly weird facial hair and thinking "that kid should really not have a beard."  I was getting worried that I was turning into that kid, and since Saturday I was going around selling ads in the playbill for drama club I felt that I should look a little more professional.  Dealing with adults who could really grow beards when I had my blond and red fur (although it was definitely more than fuzz, I feel justified in calling it a beard except that it was light-colored) felt a little odd.  

Reactions to facial hair are different depending on who's reacting.  I felt that adults would probably think I looked like a silly kid trying to look older.  Guys kind of had mixed reactions, but mostly interested since most of my Asian friends (luckily in my opinion) don't grow much facial hair.  Some girls liked it, some girls though it looked dumb.  Shaving it off was a good decision, it had gotten too long and itchy for my taste.  Whether or not I'll be sporting in the future is something I'll have to see about, maybe if I get lazy again I'll let it come back.  Either way though, I'm definitely not going to be cutting my hair or shaving my sideburns any time soon, so it should be fun to see how those turn out!  

Blogsplosion!

So remember how I mentioned Anna over at Ordinary Asian and Indraneel at Indraneel the Senior?  Another awesome person has joined the blogging family!  Kat at Kattack!  It's an incredible and awesome BLOGSPLOSION!!

I'm related to Finn McCool

Recently I've been noticing a lot that I am really tall.  I'm about 6'2' or 6'3", which puts me pretty solidly above average height-wise, and I've probably got like another inch or two to grow.  I'm thinking 6'5" will be what I stop at.  My height comes from my mom I think, she's around 5'11", which is tall for a woman.  If you've read my blog you'll know her maiden name is McCool, and there's a giant in Irish myth named Finn McCool.  Her dad used to joke with her and tell her that they were related, and that's why she's so tall.  I kind of like that idea, that I'm related to a mythical hero, and I guess it would explain my height (although I think I'd probably be taller if I was descended from a giant (yeah sub-parentheses to point out the descended pun!)).

What I hear a lot though is that I don't actually look that tall from far away, like I'm built like a normal sized person, but that up close I'm all of a sudden (the? I never quite got this idiom) huge.  I like that I'm only tall when I want to be and I don't feel uncomfortably tall in most situations.  I don't have the tall guy slouch that I see on a lot of tall people, like they're trying to make themselves shorter, mostly because my mom would always yell at me for my posture (thanks mom).  Good posture adds like an inch to your height, and I feel like standing up straight changes your whole attitude and demeanor.  You can be more commanding and powerful, or protective and comforting.  However you choose to use it, good posture definitely makes you feel more confidant.  

Being tall is a big part of my personality (see, more puns!).  I think the reason I've been feeling that so much lately is because I've been hanging out with more short people lately through Drama Club (not that you guys are all short, but there's more underclassmen in that group than any of my other groups of friends.  Although some of you are really short).  In my other groups of friends I have taller friends (shout out to Pam Larsen because she asked me to!), and I've been thinking about how our height and other physical things contribute a lot to our personalities.  I feel like I have a tall guy personality, I'm confident and kind of aggressive, but in a kind of relaxed way.  I think we kind of are shaped by the kind of person we seem to be, we grow to fit the personality expectations created by the way we look.  You can look at a person and say "oh that person is a nerd" or "an introvert" or "a jock" or "popular" etc.  And generally we're right in those assessments, because I think they become sort of self-fulfilling prophecies.

If you look at little kids and the way they interact, I think there's a natural propensity for them to organize themselves according to surface assessments.  "Oh that kid looks like me" or "dresses like me."  And who we become friends with really shapes who we are.  Our friendships shape our value judgments and our personalities, and our friendships are shaped (at least initially) by surface judgments.  As humans I think we're a lot more superficial than we think.  It's something I noticed in doing things like Model Congress and Model UN.  You have large groups of kids trying to get things done, so it's a good chance to figure out the way we work.  It generally happens that some people become leaders, as would be expected, but surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly) most of those leaders I feel are the more attractive people.  We're much more willing to approach attractive people, and for some reason we often defer to them.  If you look at leaders of countries or things like that I think that they're fairly often more attractive than average.

That same attractive bias was visible when I did NJSP interviews too.  It was a small group of kids, and I felt like the group that were ultimately picked were on average more than normally attractive.  It's not an absolute rule by any means, but more attractive people tend to be more confident and assertive.  Our attractive bias probably comes from our mate-selection instincts, so athletic looking people, attractive people, and people who seem smart (sometimes) have an advantage in groups of peers.

Generally I don't make normative statements, but I wonder whether this is something we should try to fix.  I think it's an inherent part of our nature and our society, but I think there are still ways around it.  Like I said, the attractive bias isn't an absolute rule, but we still rely a lot more than we think on initial impressions and superficial judgments.  It's not really something we can fix, but if we understand it we can try to avoid that kind of thinking for ourselves (although it's often still unavoidable), and we can also use it for ourselves.  I was taking an SAT course, and one of the tutor's points was that studying for the SAT is really valuable, because it's much easier to improve your SAT score than it is to improve your GPA, and in terms of college acceptance they mattered about the same.  Whether or not his point was valid, the same principle could be applied to our surface appearance.  There are a lot of things we can do to change our looks, some drastic and some minor, although a lot of them only require a little bit of effort.  I'm not saying that we *should* value surface appearances though, I think it's bad policy to be shallow, but I'm saying that *since* a lot of our society is very shallow, at least subconsciously, we should try to use that to our advantage.

No matter what, I still think we are heavily shaped by the expectations placed on us based on superficial things like physical appearance.  If we recognize that, I wonder if we can change that.  Every once in a while you'll meet someone who surprises you, who completely blows your expectations out of the water.  So while sometimes we get bad situations, there are some people who are able to move past that.  I don't claim to understand that, but I can at least say I admire it.

As for me, I don't think I can change the fact that I'm related to Finn McCool.  Tall is in my blood, so I have to be happy with it.  And as for shaping my personality, I am who I am and I don't think I can do much to change that.

Dog Walks

I told Anna this post would be about my height, but that's the next one I promise.  I just got back from a walk with my dog, and it is wicked cold outside.  But I actually like that.  The cold is really refreshing, makes the world seem crisp and sharp, in focus.  Summer heat just makes everything lazy and wet, everything seems like you have to move through a haze.  Maybe that's why Southerners do everything slower than we do up north (or so I hear).  Tonight was a special example too; there was no cloud cover and the moon was full and bright.  I felt like the sky was naked without the clouds, and I could see the constellations above me, plus a few clusters of small lights that I really found cool.

I really love walking my dog.  It's good thinking time, which I really don't get enough of.  Not that I don't think during the day, it's just that I really need a nice calm space to do really good thinking.  My problem is that I'm a very distractable person.  When I start thinking about or doing some particular thing everything else stops mattering.  It makes it really hard to remember to do particular things, like talk to a teacher or hand something in or go to a certain meeting.  In the hustle of school and life I focus on what's happening and I forget about the other things I have to do.  Walking the dog is a good time to decompress, take a little while and think or whistle along with some music (one of my favorite things to do, I love being able to whistle).  It's really relaxing, except for when you have to pull out a plastic bag and hold your breath.

Tonight I also saw a couple of kids walking on one of the streets near my house.  It was a group of guys, probably younger than me, just walking around I guess.  I didn't know what to say or how to interact with them as I passed them, so I just kind of smiled and nodded and kept walking.  There's this sort of general rule about the difficulty of greeting people.  There are three parameters for the awkwardness equation: age, level of knowing them, and how many people there are.  I might also throw in sex, but that doesn't impact it nearly as much as the other three things.

First is age: it's much harder to say hello to someone closer to you in age as a teenager, whether they're slightly older or slightly younger.  Adults aren't hard to say hello to, there's a kind of politeness protocol that makes it almost rude not to say hello.  Level of knowing the person you pass on the street, in the hallway, etc., also can change the way you acknowledge them.  If I know someone close in age to me well enough to talk to them one on one, I'm definitely likely to talk to them.  On the other end, if they're a complete stranger but look friendly or in a good mood I'll say hello too.  The hard part is the middle section, the people you kind of know, but haven't ever really talked to.  You know them too well to give them the stranger "hi" with a smile, but not well enough to say "Hi [name]."  The last one's kind of obvious, but the more people there are the harder it is to say hello.  You're unsure of who to make eye contact with, so you're forced to sort of awkwardly look away.  It's made worse if they're a group of people talking to each other.  You feel you shouldn't interrupt their conversation, and you generally feel sort of outnumbered if your alone.  That said, if I even have one other person with me it suddenly becomes a lot easier to say hello to people.  It's probably a power thing, a sort of instinctual reaction.

Long hallways are the worst.  You see the person coming, it's unavoidable, and you have to somehow avoid eye contact or you have to time your eye contact just right so that you acknowledge and say hello to them just as you get within a few feet of them.  If you say hello or make eye contact too early, you have that awkward few seconds where you're walking past each other but neither party knows what to say.  A conversation is out of the question, you're both going somewhere, but the "hi" didn't do enough to fill that awkward silence.  I want to be more friendly though.  I like putting myself out there sometimes, smiling at the stranger and saying hello.  I always enjoy when it happens to me.  Even if you can't say hello to everyone you pass, I always make it a policy to at least smile.  When you look happy you're a lot more approachable, and I think that happy people are more attractive too.  Plus it just feels good to get a smile, and when they're genuine I think they're infectious.

Gloves are always a good idea on dog walks by the way.  My hands are still stiff.

Long time coming

Wow so I haven't posted in far too long.  All this month!  That's what being a senior does to you, free time is consumed by college essays.  So I have a lot of posts to, er.. post tonight.  I've got two Board of Ed meetings posts to do (which I might irresponsibly compound into one) plus some fun personal posts (which I might do first).

So this post has got to thank my friend Anna over at As Told by Anna Banana.  She just started her blog because my friend Indraneel over at Indraneel the Senior recommended she try it out.  She knew about my blog, and so were now all awesome blog-buddies.  Plus I needed that kick in the pants.

Oh by the way, I just thought I'd mention, I'm watching Lie to Me right now (amazing show by the way) and I just noticed something that I found very cool.  The whole premise is that he can read peoples' faces, and see when they're lying, and he's edgy and fun.  Altogether pretty well done.  What I noticed though is his office.  It has a really distinct glass motif, and almost all of the walls are see through.  It's a really good tie in with what he does, you can't hide when you're with him, physically or psychologically.  Cool stuff I think.  On to my first real post of the night!

September: The Crazy Month

Wow, so a lot has happened over the past few weeks.  The start of school was fun, and my classes are looking great.  Calc 3 is so far fun and surprisingly relaxed, with AP Physics looking like my real math class.  AP IPLE is already challenging (and I have the bad grade to prove it unfortunately) but I can tell it will be very rewarding.  Macroeconomics looks to be challenging as well, but Mr. Saroka definitely shines as a teacher for that class; he really knows his stuff and does a good job of explaining things.

But maybe more exciting than my classes are my activities.  Student Representative is awesome, meetings with Mr. Murphy are a great time to get info and express student concerns.  Plus, I really like doing the afternoon announcements (if only to get out of French for Business for a little while).  Mock Trial is also going to be great this year, our next meeting is Thursday and tryouts are next week, and hopefully we'll get some good newbies.  Our case looks interesting, and it will be cool to see how the arguments will play out.  But maybe most exciting is Drama club.  At the suggestion of friends (Becky, Scott, and Kat) and because my schedule made it possible, I decided to try out this year.  I worked my ass off on my monologue (British accents are tough to do through a monologue that long!) and it paid off.  Our play (it's cool to say our play) is Pride and Prejudice this year, and I'll be playing Mr. Darcy alongside Kat Siciliano as Elizabeth, Dave Fertik and Devin Massih as Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, Nick Walsh as Mr. Collins, Alex Fleming as Lydia, and John Ancona as Mr. Wickham (and those are just some of the seniors).  I'm really excited to be working with the kids I've seen kick ass in our previous school plays, and hopefully we'll make this year's play great.

So that's my story of these crazy first few weeks.  It only gets crazier from here though!  And oh yeah, college applications.  Blegh.

Board of Ed Meeting Summary for September 16th

At last, a spare moment in the crazyness of September.  Sorry for the wait, but a lot has happened recently, and our last Board of Ed meeting was definitely a big one.  Two major issues have presented themselves in the past week and a half: the Hatikvah International Charter School and the cancellation of Project Graduation.

Our Board meeting started cordially, with the good news that students who began foreign language last year in either 3rd or 4th grade will be able to continue their foreign language education through 4th and 5th grade.  Then however, the Good of the Cause portion of the night began.  Around 8 parents, some with spouses and some with their children, came to speak on the Hatikvah issue.  Among the issues raised, funding was first and foremost, but many parents expressed concern over severe bussing issues as well.  After all of the parents had been given the chance to speak, Dr. Magistro gave a response, addressing especially the bussing concerns.  Dr. Magistro cited the lack of rolls and student information as a major cause of the bussing confusion, but stated that she had placed her top staff in charge of transportation, including her dispatcher, on the Hatikvah busses.  After she finished, Mr. Giacobbe gave an explanation of the legal situation.  As of the 16th, the Appellate division court had not reached a decision on the charter issue, and the process was ongoing.  At the time of the meeting, the Board had not released funds to the Hatikvah School, nor had the State given the Board the monies it owed.  Mr. Giacobbe explained that the State was required to pay the tuitions of students switching from private schools to public schools, which it had not yet done.  A suit brought against the Board in early September demanding the release of the funds had failed in court, and the judged passed the decision to the Appellate courts.  The situation as it stands now leaves the money in limbo while the Appellate Court makes its decision.  Funds cannot be released until that decision is made.

The start of school brought with it other bad news, revealed early last week.  Project Graduation will no longer exist as it has in the past.  Instead, Tuesday of Senior Week will be another half day, and will include a Senior day, free to students, with many of the activities found at Project Graduation.  The plans for this program are still in the works, but the decision to end Project Graduation in its previous form is unfortunately fairly final.  The decision was made for two major reasons: liability and money.  Project Graduation was run by the PTA, not through the school, and was run for seniors who had already graduated, meaning they were no longer under the purview of the school system.  As the program grew, the possibility of dangerous situations grew as well, as did the cost.  Last year, issues with students brought up the concern that if ever one of those situations resulted in damage to person or property, the PTA would not be able to handle the liability.  An already budget-pained PTA would not be able to handle a law suit, so as a sad result of our litigious society we have lost a great program. However, my direction to students is this: don't blame the school or least of all our Class or Student Councils.  This decision was made by the PTA, the program was a PTA program, and the bodies I just mentioned really did not have the final say in this matter.  Moving forward, I suggest that if students want to have a rewarding senior year program, they have to take the initiative and create it.  Both the Senior Class Council and Student Council are trying to put together events, so I recommend approaching them with ideas and initiative rather than complaints and blame.

While these past few weeks have not brought the best news, we should look at these issues as not just terrible times, but also times of opportunity.  Situations like this force parents to become involved in their children's schooling, and students to become involved in the activities and affairs of their schools.  Hopefully both of these issues will see good conclusions for all parties involved.

Stats

Wow, so I just checked my stats page again, and even though I haven't posted in a little while, I've had pageviews from India, the Netherlands, and Japan! Plus a good amount from Canada! Foreign readers: leave comments! That would be mind blowing, honestly.

School!

Okay wow, so school has made me very very busy. But I promise to write up another entry about my first few days of school soon.  I've also been thinking a lot about methods of thinking (meta-thinking!) which I'll hopefully incorporate into my next post.  Soon!

Videos of Board of Ed meetings

A new feature of our ebtv site is streaming and on-demand videos of the channel 3 programming. What that means is that now Board of Ed meetings are available to watch on the internet. I might try to start timestamping my notes so that when I write posts they will refer to specific times in the video so that you guys can actually see what I'm referring to.

Here's the link.

Navigate through categories to Council and BOE meetings.

Views

Wow! Apparently my site has gotten over 600 pageviews, and even some from Canada (although some of those might have been Grace). That is awesome, but the only way I found that out was through the stat page. If you read a post, leave a comment! Or, if you like my blog, follow me! That way I won't feel like I'm just throwing words out into the void of the internets!

Thanks readers!

Clarion Article

I was cleaning out my backpack today (summer is nearly dead, how sad) and I found an old issue of the Clarion, the school newspaper. I flipped through it, and found out why I had kept it: it had one of my articles in it! I'm honestly glad that Daphna persuaded me to write for the paper, I had a couple of fun experiences and now I'll be able to continue to write about the Board of Education. The article was one of my favorites, and it dealt with what to me is a major issue: organ donation. I don't really have money because I don't really have a job, but I still want to be able to help people. The perfect avenue in my opinion is by being a donor, not only of organs but also of blood, which this article didn't deal with. I'll be able to donate again on December 10th, because I just recently did a double platelet donation. Donating blood is easy, pretty painless, and it can help save a life. So here's the link to the article, enjoy!

The Need for Organs

Board of Ed Meeting Summary for August 26th

I'm a little late with this post, things have started to get hectic again. Between college applications and summer assignments, plus math tutoring and sophomore orientations, I haven't had much time. But I'll definitely be continuing these posts throughout the school year, so I have to learn to make time.

Thursday's meeting started with an important Superintendent's Report concerning the current Board of Ed suit against the Hatikvah International Charter School. Dr. Magistro was looking to clarify some of the misperceptions over the suit. First, Dr. Magistro made it clear that the only thing at issue in the suit was the inadequate enrollment numbers for the 2010-2011 school year. To restate those numbers, Hatikvah was mandated to have at least 90% of its maximum enrollment of 108 in order to receive funding, meaning a minimum of 97. Based on the documents received by the Board throughout the summer, the Hatikvah school only had 40 people properly registered when their charter was approved. The major problem seemed to be a lack of accurate information provided by the Hatikvah school, and an auditor sent into the school in July had to actually contact parents in order to verify enrollment. Additionally, many of the enrollees were also still on the rolls of the East Brunswick public schools, meaning that the proper channels were not followed by registrants. Dr. Magistro then addressed the allegations that the Board and schools had not been cooperative, stating that the principles of each school had been met with and that the registration process had been explained to them. Lastly, Dr. Magistro stated that she had in fact contacted the Board of Trustees for the Hatikvah school to address these problems, but that she was still waiting for a response. To illustrate the amount of communication and documentation that the process had taken, Dr. Magistro brought to the meeting a large stack of papers slightly over a foot that contained the communications.

The current situation is this: Commissioner Schundler's decision to approve the charter currently stands, but instead of the $1.2 million originally required of the Board, only $873 thousand will be given to the school to provide for the 77 students that will be attending the Hatikvah school starting this month. The Board's suit stands, and the Board is seeking to overturn Commissioner Schundler's decision to approve the charter for the Hatikvah school through the appellate courts. A decision will hopefully be made within a few weeks.

During the For the Good of the Cause portion, in which members of the public are invited to speak, four speakers spoke on two different matters: the Hatikvah school and the bussing situation for elementary and private school children. Both parents who spoke on the Hatikvah school expressed confusion and concern over the status of their children, and one woman testified to the difficulty she had in properly registering her child. The Board responded to these concerns with assurances that parents would be kept updated and that the situation would be resolved with the welfare of the children as a top priority. The two parents who spoke about bussing were concerned about the consolidated schedules, which included students from St. Thomas, St. Barts, as well as EB public schools on the same busses in many cases. These routes meant that children could be on busses for as long as an hour, and would potentially be travelling on Route 18 and other busy roads. Mr. Giuliana responded by outlining the situation that the district is currently in with regards to bussing. Both the private schools and the public schools in the area were facing issues with cost effectiveness of bussing. There is a mandated cap on transportation costs per student, and with more students being driven to and from school by their parents, the district was facing shortages of students on busses. To address this problem, the schools had consolidated bussing, cooperating so that bussing could be provided. Mr. Giuliana acknowledged that the current situation was not perfect, but he stated that the schools were happy with the arrangement, and that the alternative would sadly be an inability to provide bussing at all.

Also presented at the meeting was the new plan for Memorial School. This plan features a number of energy saving measures, and complies with new standards for security. Major changes include: a larger parking and drop off area which will be located off of Innes Road and which will accommodated for by moving the school farther off of the road; a separation of the academic classrooms from the public facilities such as the gym, cafetorium, and library by corridors which will create two main hubs, with academic rooms in the rear and the public facilities in the front; an enclosed playground for the preschool and kindergarten children; and a second floor which will add more classrooms. For some concept photos as well as the website of the architecture firm in charge of the design, click here.

The last few items of the night were various acceptances of PTA gifts, including a PTA donation of $2,000 to the Frost School in order for it to gain the "Blue Ribbon" title through the same program that many other EB schools have received the title. Mrs. Ogden explained that this program had been in place in the past, but was suspended until only recently, which is why some of our schools do not yet have the "Blue Ribbon" title. The Board then looked at the new policies that had been presented by the Policy Committee for adoption, revision, or deletion. These policies included a new mandated policy on district employee travel expenses, a new policy on diabetes management in schools, a change that raised the minimum number of club members to 15 in order to receive funding, and changes to the pupil smoking policy and reporting violence, vandalism, alcohol, and other drug abuse policy that clarified some language. Additionally, a new policy about hate crimes and bias-related acts is also up for adoption, which will provide a definition of those issues and give administrators powers to deal with them. The last policy change that most directly affects students is the changes to the attendance policy. Previously, students in the high school were allowed a maximum of 18 absences in a full year class, 9 in a half year, and 6 in a quarter course in order to receive credit. Now, only unexcused absences will count towards that total, and the numbers will be changed to 10, 5, and 3 respectively. The appeal and review process will remain the same, and students will still be allowed to make up courses with lost credit in summer school. These policies will be voted on at the next meeting, and at that time I will provide links to their text for more detail.

That's all for this time, more updates are on their way!

Paper number two

Motivated by a recent conversation I had with some family, I'm posting a link to the paper I wrote as the final paper for my Philosophy course from last summer. The course was great and I'm pretty happy with this paper, which is more common with papers whose topics I create.

I tried to address this paper to my discussions about faith that I had been having with a lot of my friends and floormates at UPenn. My neighbors were two Orthodox Jewish kids, and one in particular did a really good job of articulating arguments for his faith. It was a fun and challenging summer, and there were a few times we stayed up very late (or rather, early) talking about religion and metaphysics. One of the major challenges that he presented me, and a question that has been repeated in a lot of subsequent discussions, is this: doesn't ultimately our acceptance of historical or scientific facts boil down to faith? This paper was part of my answer to that question, and came out of those late-night discussions.

Faith and Reason

Looking back, I feel like my writing style has definitely grown since I wrote this paper. Even though it was only a year ago, I feel like I've learned a lot, not only about writing, but also about the content and subject matter of this paper. NJSP also gave me lots of opportunities to explore these ideas, and more discussions with people of faith have definitely given me some new sensitivity and understanding of their position. Enjoy the paper!

Board of Ed Meeting Summary for August 13th

As some of you might know, one of the things that I'll be doing this school year is serving as the Student Liaison to the East Brunswick Board of Education (cool word I think, liaison). My liaising duties (even better word, liaising) include attending all of the Board of Ed meetings, where I'm allowed to speak during discussion time and represent us, the students! The other side of my job is reporting what I learn back to you guys, the school community. So, in this blog, after every meeting (1st and 3rd Thursday of the month), I'll give you guys a summary of some of the important discussions and happenings. Hopefully I'll also be writing in the school newspaper, but since that's only once a month (and word limited) this will be a good place to put some details up. After the eventful year we had last year, I want to make sure there's a place that students can come if they want information on what's going on, and I want this to be that place!

Today was my first meeting back since NJSP, and unfortunately among the things I missed was the presentation of the new Memorial School plans. I'm an alum, and passing by the other day I got the sad sight of a pile of rubble where my school once stood. Happily though, construction will begin soon, and hopefully there will be other opportunities for me to hear about the progress and plans. In other elementary school news, Warnsdorfer's new playground is now complete, with Bowne's playground and others near completion. Additionally, next year will see the start of an extended care kindergarten option, which give parents the option of having their children in a supervised, structured environment from as early as 7 a.m. to as late as 6 p.m. The program is optional, and will cost extra, but currently has over 65 enrollees and will provide a good alternative to daycare for many working parents. Lastly in the miscellany is news about the successful heart screenings that went on yesterday for student athletes. The screenings were optional and cost 60 dollars, but will provide parents and athletes assurance against heart related sport injuries.

Two other major topics were brought up in this meeting: news about the Board of Education's motion for an injunction against the Hatikvah International School's charter, and the (passed) motion to raise school lunch prices.

On the first issue, I should first give some background. Here is a link to the homepage of the school itself, here is a link to a discussion of the controversy, and here is a link to an article specifically discussing the Board of Ed's lawsuit. The proposed school will be a publicly funded school that will provide a particular focus on "Hebrew language and culture" to develop bilingual students and help "build partnerships for future economic and cultural opportunities" with Israel. I'll cover the debate over the school itself in a later post (the article does a good job of it, but I'll give you guys my take), because the Board of Ed's lawsuit came from a completely different angle than most of the criticisms leveled at the school. According to law, the school must have at least 90% of its maximum enrollment of 108 enrolled before starting classes and before receiving public funds. According to the numbers provided to the Board of Ed, the enrollment currently stands at 68, which falls far short of the 98 needed. The State Department of Education has already granted approval of Hatikvah's charter, but this lawsuit could prevent the school from receiving the 1.22 million dollars that it was budgeted to get. I'll keep you guys posted on developments, and I'll post on the issue itself hopefully soon.

The other major discussion topic was the new raise in school lunch prices. Without a raise, the school's Food Services budget of 2.4 million was expected to take in a 14 thousand dollar profit. While this may initially seem odd, this number should instead be seen as a surplus. Money coming in is used to make up the cost of providing the lunches, and profit is simply the extra positive income. This 14 thousand left little wiggle room however (barely half of a percent of our total budget), and the danger that we could fall into the red made raising school lunch prices unavoidable. The initial proposed hike was 25 cents, bringing the cost in the high school up to $3.50 and giving the budget a wider margin of 125 thousand (around 2.5% of the total Food Services budget). However, concerns that this amount would put an undue strain on some families' budget motivated a compromise motioned by Mrs. Vicki Becker to only increase the cost by 10 cents. However, at this point, concerns were voiced not only only the budgetary issue, but also on the logistical issue, with Superintendent Dr. Jo Ann Magistro stating that incorporating further change divisions (dimes and nickels as opposed to quarters) would slow down lines. I expressed the concern that the effective cost would be a quarter raise without the effective gain being a quarter raise, as many students both young and old would undoubtedly have a hard time keeping track of small change and would likely find themselves coming up short on more occasions. Ultimately however, the motion passed, and effective this year school lunches will cost an extra 10 cents, bringing the high school cost to $3.35.

However, around midway through the discussion the news was announced that this year, hopefully by December, a new system will be available to pay for our school lunches. The system will function somewhat similarly to a debit card through new ID's that will be issued, which will keep lines flowing faster and reduce the hassle for many students. Additionally, these new ID's are also planned to allow students to unlock doors in the morning and during school hours by swiping them. The plans are still being worked on, and again I'll keep you guys posted. Expect a Clarion article about the changes sometime in November or December!

That's all for that meeting, hope you guys found some of that useful or interesting. More posts are on their way!

New Jersey Scholars Program

Summer hasn't really been summer for me this summer. For the second summer in a row I decided to do something academic with my school-free ten weeks. In other words, I went back to school. Last summer I went to the University of Pennsylvania to take courses (for fun and for credit), and totally loved the experience. It was a great intro to college, I met a lot of cool people, and the courses I took were really fun. I didn't take it for placement, it was really just for fun. Intro to Philosophy with Prof. Hilgers and Intro to Decision Theory with Prof. Sen were the courses I took, and both really broadened my interests and taught me a lot. I'd never been away from home for any long period of time, so it was great to get used to living on my own for six weeks, being independent, taking care of myself, having a roommate, and making friends out of strangers. I suggest a program like that to any high schooler who has a free summer; I've never experienced those CTY programs, but taking real undergrad courses with undergraduates was really great. It motivated the hell out of me too, because you can get into summer programs at schools that are out of your range. Knowing that I would be comfortable at an Ivy, that it wasn't pretentious, and knowing that I'm capable of the work gave me a lot of confidence, and doing a summer program is a great way to push your borders.

This summer I was looking into a similar program at Harvard (again, I can only get in because it's a summer program) when I heard about the NJ Scholars Program. The Program was a five week seminar on Human Rights, examining the topic through four different disciplines: Literature/Law, History/Politics, Religion/Philosophy, and the Arts. I wasn't originally excited (the website didn't look that impressive, and the alternative was Harvard), and I did the application without a whole lot of enthusiasm. Then I got to the second part of the application process, the interview phase, and I realized how awesome this program was going to be. The campus did not look like a high school campus, it was way too impressive, and the interview itself was fun and interesting. I'm absolutely happy I got in, even though I know my summer would have been great no matter what.

The choice was a little difficult; getting the course guide for Harvard and looking at all of the cool courses was kind of painful, knowing that I couldn't take any of them. I'm happy with the decision I made though, NJSP was amazing. The first few days were exciting, and it's always great meeting other kids knowing that no one knows anybody, but that everybody wants to meet everybody else. We jumped right in and had readings to do the first night, after Mr. Sauerman warned us about crossing route 206 of course (you will die!). Monday through Friday our mornings began with a lecture from 8:30 to 10 with one of the four professors (Kate Dodd for Art, Amy Glenn for Religion/Philosophy, Champ Atlee for Literature, and Nina McCune for History/Politics). Then we'd split into 3 groups of 13 (there were 39 of us) and have our seminars from 10:15 to 11:45, which were discussion oriented classes with one of the professors. After lunch, we'd have another seminar from 1:30 to 3, and then the rest of the day was ours. We would relax in the library (which was air conditioned, unlike our dorm), do the readings for our seminars, and hang out with each other until curfew (and sometimes past it).

I learned a lot about human rights, and our coursework was fun and interesting, but I also learned a lot about the people I was working with. Everyone got very familiar with the mannerisms of the individual teachers, and our resident impressionist Mike Sotsky managed to replicate Mr. Atlee. I learned about my peers too; the diversity of the community we formed was impressive. I'm not a religious person, but there were people there who were Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus. We had musicians, athletes, and nerds of all denominations. We had Disney sing-alongs, Star Wars Trivial Pursuit, and every kind of intellectual debate you could think of (especially at 4 in the morning). It's that diversity that made those discussions possible. If I had to describe NJSP in a few words, it would be "a community of intellectuals". I don't mean a bunch of elitist snobs, or pretentious nerds, I mean a group of people who really loved learning about each other and about the world.

I made a lot of lasting friendships, and I'm sure we'll be having plenty of reunions. As an unexpected bonus, I also met an amazing girl who I'm lucky enough to now call my girlfriend. She's smart, fun, and a great match for me. When I say great match though, I don't mean that we're the same kind of people, although in a lot of respects we are. The great thing is that we're very different people in some very important ways: she's religious, I'm a skeptic; she's from an all-girls Catholic school, I'm from a really big public school; and most importantly, she's emotional and I'm definitely not. We've learned a lot from each other, and she's made me more comfortable with being a little more emotional.

In the end I brought a lot away from the program. I really feel that I'm ready for college now, and I'm going to go into senior year with more motivation and more confidence. I've learned a lot about myself, others, and the world, and I've produced what I feel is one of the best papers that I've ever written. This summer, even though it isn't over yet, has meant a lot to me, and I'll remember it for a long time.

Link to my paper

Because I talked about it in my last post, and because I feel like the topic is really relevant to this blog, I'm linking the paper that I wrote at the end of the New Jersey Scholars Program. My post on the program still isn't up, I promise I'm working on it and I want to do it justice.

To give you an overview, this paper is about identity, something I talked about in my very first post, and the dynamics of collective identities, particularly how they are used to motivate and justify violence. The little number signs are footnotes, google documents doesn't like them.

Hope you enjoy it!

Collective Identity and Mass Violence:

How what we call ourselves affects how we think

Meta-Blogpost

That's right, this is going to be a meta-blogpost: a blogpost about blogposting. I've kinda let my discipline slip when it comes to this blog; I started this blog just before I started my major final paper (which I might post) for the summer program I was in and have since been travelling and seeing family. But that's not the real reason I haven't been posting a whole lot. The real reason is that it takes serious effort to produce writing that you're confident enough in that you want (potentially) the whole world to read.

When I was writing my paper I came across something with my friends. I'm the kind of person who always wants a peer review. I always like other people's input, even if it's just editing for grammar: my sentences get wordy, I use too many semicolons, my sentence structure gets too complex, I write the way I speak, etc. Most of all I like having someone to tell me when things don't make sense to them the way they make sense to me. But a lot of my friends are not the same way at all. When I was trying to get peer reviewers I was offering to trade papers, but a lot of people didn't want other people reading their papers. Even these kids--who were all very clearly smart--weren't confident enough in their writing, or were too intimidated by their peers, to let others read their work.

So how does this tie in with blogposting. It's not that I don't have confidence in my writing, but whenever we produce something we're always worried about how other people will react. Whether it's art, athletics, or discussions in a group, confidence is important and hard to come by. For me, I never felt really comfortable in a sports setting. I don't mean that I'm not athletic, I've done a lot of athletics in my life, but what I mean is that I never felt fully comfortable having other people relying on or judging my athletic abilities. In a team setting I always felt like I was dragging everybody down, and I never really knew where to be on the court. But in clear contrast to that, I almost always feel comfortable in a discussion setting or really anytime I'm talking in front of people. I love Mock Trial, I'm way into Model United Nations and Model Congress, and this year I'm hopefully going to do drama as well. I'm a born bs'er, and I almost always have the confidence to voice my thoughts when I'm in class or seminar. For me, group discussion is just where I'm comfortable.

No matter how confident we are though, we're always self-conscious. I'm comfortable talking, but I'm always worrying about whether I'm talking too much, or saying things that are offensive or insensitive, or whether I sound arrogant. Our self-consciousness never goes away, and I'm thinking about those same issues when I'm writing a blogpost. Should I be writing a blog? Are people going to care, or am I just going to be that weird guy who blogs? Am I sounding pretentious, or nerdy, or just plain weird? What it boils down to is this: how are people going to react to the part of myself that I'm putting out there?

It's something we always have to deal with: how others perceive us. How do we market ourselves, how do we sell ourselves, how do we present ourselves? Clothing, appearances, attitudes, they're all deeply influenced by our social interactions. Some people cater to the audience, and they become an actor, wear the costume, and play the role that they feel will make society happy. And some people decide to give the audience the finger, and pretend that they don't care what anyone thinks of them. But whether we like it or not, we always know what the audience thinks, and that knowledge informs our decisions.

So for my part, I'll try to stay conscious of my audience, but never let them run the play. In life and in this blog, I don't intend to be shy with my opinions or my thoughts, and I never want to wear a costume that I don't feel comfortable in. As much as I try to deny labels, I'm really a thoughtful nerd, a guy who never lost his sense of natural wonder in the world, a guy who isn't afraid to challenge his beliefs or the beliefs of others, and someone who really fits the term philosopher. I don't mean old bearded men with pipes mumbling about meaningless nonsense, I mean philosophy, philo-, meaning love of, and sophia, meaning wisdom or knowledge. I honestly just love to learn, love to know, and love to share that exploration and discovery with other people. That's why I'm here, writing this blog, and I hope I'll get some people to come along for the ride!

First Projects

Post number two, and this time a short one. I just wanted to outline my plans for my next few posts so y'all can know what to expect (not that I have any readers yet, my blog is only a few hours old). I've talked about myself a little, and in my next post I want to talk about where I am right now, the New Jersey Scholars Program. That might cover a couple of posts, but eventually I'll be approaching that dreaded time: the college application experience. I'll reflect on that as I go along, and from time to time I'll likely post some random thoughts and observations generated by the amazing group of kids I'm with right now and the studies we've been doing.

Thanks, and hopefully this will be fun!

Names

Wow, first post. I have to say, the hardest part about creating this blog was figuring out what to name it. That's not just a problem for my blog though, it's a problem for me. It's all about definition; who am I? My family calls me Rick, Ricky, and so on. But to friends and teachers I'm Rich. Which do I really prefer? Can I be both at the same time? And what do I do when those two personae collide? My name is a treasure trove, I'm Ricky Martin, Dick Ressler, and as the blog title suggests, if I had taken my mom's last name I could have been Rich McCool (imagine the reaction of the clerk if I ever tried to legally change my name).

The first time I realized my name was an issue was at my brother's wedding in 2007. I was his Best Man (which is a good story for another time), and at the rehearsal the wedding party was getting to know the minister. He asked us to go down the line and introduce ourselves -- a pretty routine exercise until it was my turn to speak. "Hi, I'm Rich Ressler" I said, and the reaction from my family was immediate: "Rich Ressler? Who is Rich Ressler?" In my mind, I was Rich Ressler, but to my family I was Rick Ressler, never Rich. To this day, my cousin Jenny will occasionally call me Moneybags Ressler, and this seems like an issue I won't be able to escape without making a decision.

So what are my options? I could continue this dichotomy, confusing my friends and family. I could pick one name or the other, Rick or Rich, and make it universal. Or I could pick choice c, and take an entirely new name, asking people to call my by my middle name, Martin. This is not a small question; in our culture names serve as identifiers, and we develop a strong connection with our names; they become a part of us. But what about cultures like the Balinese, where children are given one of four names which roughly mean "first born," "second born," "third born," and "fourth born." Given the high birthrates and high infant mortality in Bali, even the meanings we interpret in these names are lost, because the child named "fourth born" could in fact be the oldest child. (All of this information is taken from Clifford Geertz, "Person, Time, and Conduct in Bali"). In this culture, it might be fair to say that individuals are de-individualized and are seen instead simply as parts of the collective. Of course, this kind of system only works in the small, culturally homogeneous societies of Bali, and are entirely foreign to Westerners, especially Americans with their emphasis on individual freedom.

If our name is part of our identity, then I suppose my struggle is to define my identity. But our struggle to define ourselves goes far beyond our names. Our names are just an example of what we call ourselves, in other words, the things that make up our identities. We have a number of components to our identities, such as gender, race, culture, religion, nationality, political persuasion among others. Here's an experiment: list five things that you call yourself, words that identify you. When you're done, look at your list. What was the first thing that came to your mind? Rearrange your list so that it's in the order of importance. Ideally, this list represents how you view yourself, where your allegiances lie. (Thank you Amy Glenn for this experiment.)

This won't be the last time I write on identity (it is, after all, my final paper topic for the New Jersey Scholars Program, another story for another day). But for me, this task was tough. I got as far as "nerd," "tall," "skeptic" and then ran out of ideas. I'm not a religious person, I'm not a sports fan so there's no team allegiance, my gender doesn't define me, and I don't like calling myself a Democrat or a Republican. My identity, like my name, is not clearly defined. I think, however, that I am not unique in that situation, especially among teenagers. Teenage years are the time to try on different identities and see how they fit, to explore ourselves and who we are. We can be athletes one day, nerds the next; we can be protesters one day and conservatives the next.

So what's my answer, am I Rick or am I Rich?

Call me Martin.

For now.