LJ is back
Fri, Feb. 21st, 2003 02:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterSo does anyone actually know what happened to LJ? I couldn't get into it for a good day and a half, and yes, 48 hours is eternity in internet-land.
I wrote a thesis outline. I hope it doesn't suck. I will write an intro. and chapter one by March 7, along with everything else that's due. Watch Oyce write. Yay Oyce.
And I'm in a bad mood again. The boy pissed me off yesterday, and apparently I still haven't come back down from it. And now everything is annoying me, and no, I don't want to talk about it thankyouverymuch. The boy is very bad about the whole we have to talk thing in the way that he always makes me talk when I'm still fuming. Which of course only makes me angrier and bitchier and even less prone to talk later on. So right now I feel extremely childish and mindlessly grumpy. And that people are stupid. I hate going to lunch and sitting at tables where I don't really know people that well, but everyone else is in the same social group, because I'm too tired to actually figure out the conversation and too lazy to join in. Seems like a waste of time sometimes. I am also sick of having people roll their eyes at me when I talk about Buffy even when those people don't even have to listen to me talk about Buffy all the time, like the boy does. The boy takes it remarkably well, considering. Right now I'm in the mood where I wish everyone would stop bitching at me for skipping class (especially stupid because, hey, second semester senior, don't care that much) or not writing the thesis (bugger off) or not socializing (have they not figured out I don't want to?). And in my world, people would just shut up and let me sulk in peace.
So yesterday I was working, and I overheard at one table:
White guy: I don't know, I'd feel weird going to Africa. Like I'd stick out or something.
Indian guy: Who cares? I'm going to Italy this summer.
White guy: Yeah, well, you're used to it.
And somehow this conversation really got my hackles up. I'm sure White Guy probably didn't mean anything by that statement except pure fact, as the boy pointed out, but it still seems kind of callous to me. It's as though he were saying something like, oh you're used to it, so it doesn't bother you anymore. Or oh you're used to it, so I don't have to care. Or oh you're used to it, and my problem and my awkwardness is therefore more important. And to all that I was thinking, bull. Yeah, I have been Chinese all my life, although not in America. But just because I'm used to it doesn't mean that occasionally it doesn't bother me when I look around and there are white people everywhere. I don't know. This isn't a very rational response, especially since I'm one of the (few) Chinese people here who DOESN'T do the clique/Asian club scene. I guess it just seems to bother me beceause I have a sense that being a minority is one of those things you're just stuck with for life. And maybe you can forget about it most of the time or close to all the time, but once in a blue moon, something happens that reminds you, hello! You are not what most people here look like. And in a way, I almost feel glad that above White Guy will feel weird going to Africa, just like I sometimes feel vindicated when my white friends visit Asia. Yeah, don't you feel out of place now? Lots of expats in Hong Kong, lots of English language stuff, but don't you still feel odd? I know, evil.
I think this ties in with my problem with America. Generally, I like this country, I do. But sometimes I have a problem with the attitude that America is a superpower and therefore the center of the world. And again, I say bull. Which is why it kind of causes an odd sort of glee when I have American friends (usually white males) traveling to non-European places and discovering that they stick out. They don't belong. Kind of a "neener neener neener" response to their arguments about PC and why it's excessive these days. Or how people nowadays are too sensitive about the issue of race. Because I think once someone who has been accustomed to being a majority group, who is used to NOT having to think about race on a daily basis in regard to himself, is put in that minority position, race suddenly becomes much more of an issue. They notice it where they may not have before because it's everywhere. It's hard to escape the fact that they are one of the few white people on the bus or on the street. And suddenly, in that type of setting, race and PC-ness becomes much more of an issue, because they can potentially be the victims of it in a way that they normally wouldn't be as a majority back at home.
So there you go, people. Thoughts from yesterday.
I wrote a thesis outline. I hope it doesn't suck. I will write an intro. and chapter one by March 7, along with everything else that's due. Watch Oyce write. Yay Oyce.
And I'm in a bad mood again. The boy pissed me off yesterday, and apparently I still haven't come back down from it. And now everything is annoying me, and no, I don't want to talk about it thankyouverymuch. The boy is very bad about the whole we have to talk thing in the way that he always makes me talk when I'm still fuming. Which of course only makes me angrier and bitchier and even less prone to talk later on. So right now I feel extremely childish and mindlessly grumpy. And that people are stupid. I hate going to lunch and sitting at tables where I don't really know people that well, but everyone else is in the same social group, because I'm too tired to actually figure out the conversation and too lazy to join in. Seems like a waste of time sometimes. I am also sick of having people roll their eyes at me when I talk about Buffy even when those people don't even have to listen to me talk about Buffy all the time, like the boy does. The boy takes it remarkably well, considering. Right now I'm in the mood where I wish everyone would stop bitching at me for skipping class (especially stupid because, hey, second semester senior, don't care that much) or not writing the thesis (bugger off) or not socializing (have they not figured out I don't want to?). And in my world, people would just shut up and let me sulk in peace.
So yesterday I was working, and I overheard at one table:
White guy: I don't know, I'd feel weird going to Africa. Like I'd stick out or something.
Indian guy: Who cares? I'm going to Italy this summer.
White guy: Yeah, well, you're used to it.
And somehow this conversation really got my hackles up. I'm sure White Guy probably didn't mean anything by that statement except pure fact, as the boy pointed out, but it still seems kind of callous to me. It's as though he were saying something like, oh you're used to it, so it doesn't bother you anymore. Or oh you're used to it, so I don't have to care. Or oh you're used to it, and my problem and my awkwardness is therefore more important. And to all that I was thinking, bull. Yeah, I have been Chinese all my life, although not in America. But just because I'm used to it doesn't mean that occasionally it doesn't bother me when I look around and there are white people everywhere. I don't know. This isn't a very rational response, especially since I'm one of the (few) Chinese people here who DOESN'T do the clique/Asian club scene. I guess it just seems to bother me beceause I have a sense that being a minority is one of those things you're just stuck with for life. And maybe you can forget about it most of the time or close to all the time, but once in a blue moon, something happens that reminds you, hello! You are not what most people here look like. And in a way, I almost feel glad that above White Guy will feel weird going to Africa, just like I sometimes feel vindicated when my white friends visit Asia. Yeah, don't you feel out of place now? Lots of expats in Hong Kong, lots of English language stuff, but don't you still feel odd? I know, evil.
I think this ties in with my problem with America. Generally, I like this country, I do. But sometimes I have a problem with the attitude that America is a superpower and therefore the center of the world. And again, I say bull. Which is why it kind of causes an odd sort of glee when I have American friends (usually white males) traveling to non-European places and discovering that they stick out. They don't belong. Kind of a "neener neener neener" response to their arguments about PC and why it's excessive these days. Or how people nowadays are too sensitive about the issue of race. Because I think once someone who has been accustomed to being a majority group, who is used to NOT having to think about race on a daily basis in regard to himself, is put in that minority position, race suddenly becomes much more of an issue. They notice it where they may not have before because it's everywhere. It's hard to escape the fact that they are one of the few white people on the bus or on the street. And suddenly, in that type of setting, race and PC-ness becomes much more of an issue, because they can potentially be the victims of it in a way that they normally wouldn't be as a majority back at home.
So there you go, people. Thoughts from yesterday.
