Ceci n’est pas un Blog

I always go to China during my “transition periods”: between Germany and Canada, middle school and high school, and high school and college. Therefore, all of my extended family back home expected me to go back this summer as I made my transition from an MIT undergrad to a Harvard grad student. But when my parents told me they would not be able to accompany me to my trip China this summer, I suddenly no longer wanted to go.

The reasons boiled down to language, culture, and time-related alienation from my extended family. This is actually quite difficult for me to admit, but I will bear the shame and try to elaborate on the origins of the estrangement from my family.

1. Language

I can count on one hand the Chinese friends with whom I speak on a regular basis. I speak English to all of them. When my parents call, they talk to me in Chinese and I respond in English. Sometimes I intersperse some Chinese words here and there, but hearing the way my words clumsily stumble over my tongue is like watching myself dog paddling through a pool of advanced swimmers. My cousins used to introduce me as “the foreigner” or the “American” to their friends when I visited them in China. I silently hated those words. Yet now, for the first time in my life, listening to my awkward and ugly Chinese has made me realize just how much of a foreigner I have become.

Sometimes when I am surrounded in a Chinese environment (ex. home), the muscles in my mouth grow accustomed to the language and the Chinese flows out with more ease. Nonetheless, the sporadic practice has worn my vocabulary thin and I struggle to communicate with my family (or even family friends) with pure Chinese. That’s the foremost reason I really depend on my parents being around if I go back to China: I need a translator.

2. Culture

You probably know by now that I am a complete nutjob. I curse like a sailor and I depend on crude sexual jokes, nerdy science humor, and references to internet memes to support conversations. None of that would fly in China. Plus, going back to the language problem, I don’t know how to say “quantum dots,” “photocatalytic water splitting with a metal oxide,” or “will be fucked in the ass by my Applied Physics quals” in Chinese. That, pretty much, leaves me with nothing to talk about.

3. Timing

Last time I was back in China for an impressionable time was before MIT. At that point, I was still a teenager, dating my ex, crying to mediocre singer-songwriters, and a virgin. A lot has changed since then (though sometimes, only sometimes, I still listen to bad acoustic guitar songs with emo lyrics that make little sense). Therefore, I don’t feel like my family doesn’t know me. The truth is, they probably don’t. They know me as well as I know them. Hell, I don’t even know most of their names. I call them Auntie or Uncle anyways. The large gaps between visits and the lack of communication during these intervals are probably the strongest sources of alienation for me.

Do I love my family? Undoubtably so. Do I miss my family? Quite honestly, maybe not so much. I have very fond memories of China, my childhood, and of course my family. They treat me much better than I deserve to be treated. I’m served the most expensive dishes and showered with unrelenting attention. “What do you want, Shanying? Tell me anything and we’ll buy it for you. Anything!” And they mean it. Thinking of my Chinese family elicits feelings of nostalgia, deep gratitude, and guilt. But not a sense of closeness.

Does this make me a cold and heartless person who turns her back on her loving family? Because that’s how I feel sometimes.

Comments, insights, and personal stories are always appreciated. Particularly on this issue.

“I would never want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.” - Woody Allen in Annie Hall

It’s pathetic how good I’ve gotten at making excuses for myself. I’ve been very disappointed with myself recently, but I have yet to do anything about it. Because, see, I may be the world’s most unmotivated person right now…but, don’t worry, that’s all temporary.

Really, I will start working hard again once I move into my the new apartment with my own desk/have a thesis to work towards/have an advisor who’s on my case.

…right.

I feel pangs of guilt every time I intentionally ignore the alarm clock in the mornings, when I fall asleep on the lab couch while “reading a paper,” and when I go home at 3pm. But there are no consequences to my actions. I’m not being graded on this, I won’t be fired, and I won’t get anything published from this anyways. Suddenly, there’s no point in any of this, aside from the fact that I need something to keep me occupied and I want to leave the Belcher lab on a positive note. I feel so jaded over all this research, I have no faith that anything I work on in the next few months will amount to anything.

You’d think recognizing that the problem lies in myself is the hardest part. Getting the lazy side I hate to succumb to my reasonable side is truly the obstacle here. These are days when I just can’t deal with myself.

Every time I come up to my office to get something (ie. a lab notebook), I end up checking my email, which leads to checking twitter and google reader, which then leads to me inevitably finding myself lost in the timeless zone of the internet. Instead of starting another one of my syntheses, I am sitting here, with my dirty lab coat, reading my old high school blog and feeling both ashamed at how personal I was about my feelings and impressed by some of my writing. I’ve never been a very good writer, but I do feel like I was a better writer as a depressed, emo senior in high school than I am now as a perfectly happy and satisfied college-graduate. Should I just wait until I’m feeling mopey again and write one angsty piece after another?

Then again, this blog has a different purpose and a different audience. I write here not to rant or in need of an outlet. I write here sometimes to entertain, sometimes to inform, and mostly to cure my boredom and humor my narcissism. Sometimes I will even write several posts a day, though those rarely end up being “published.” They’re usually deemed too personal, and I choose of hide them in my drafts folder as a reminder of my decaying writing skills. Emotions are overrated anyways. I should just stick to writing pointless entries, such as this one.

Sigh. No really, I should go downstairs to lab. Now what did I come here to get…

First off, thank you to everyone who commented, talked to me in real life, sent me emails, and talked to me over gchat after my previous post. I appreciated everyone’s input and insight. Through conversations I decided that, not only can I be both a scientist and a “woman,” but doing home-y things like knitting, cooking, and relaxing, is probably most rewarding after a day of work. After all, beauty emerges under the presence of contrast.

But of course I am here today with another complaint. About this path that I am so certain of now: graduate school. I am, unfortunately, born with a fateful combination of impatience and a propensity to panic. And it is this personality that shows its weakness the most the past few weeks. Oh graduate schools. Why is there no set date for your admissions announcements?. All I know is that we’re entering the double-digits of February, and there’s still no word from you.

Except Northwestern. My dearest, lovely, wonderful Northwestern with its renowned Materials program and its early (January!) admissions. You are the only program to have confessed its love to me so far. And I love you dearly in return.

But the rest of you: my heart aches at the thought of the many hours I slaved over those applications and what could have been between us. What still can, if you just pick up that phone or send that little email! Such agony! Feeling those terrifying butterflies in my stomach every time that inbox is refreshed and every time my phone vibrates. Every night I dream about acceptances and rejections from various of you, and wake up confused and frustrated. Is it you? Or was it me? Was my statement of purpose not convincing enough? Should I have contacted more of your faculty to express my interest? Did I have a unbeknown poor letter of recommendation?

Mike has been trying to convince me I should be happy, given my circumstances. And I am happy about Northwestern. I applied because I want to go. It’s a great program, after all! But I’m also apparently a little whore, and I want everyone, every school to woo me. Why does everyone else get to be wooed by different schools and provided subsidized visits to California? Isn’t my GPA just as good? Haven’t I been doing research since, like, forever?

Even worse, this whole situations has made me short-tempered and overly emotional. Recently I’ve gotten to the point where I will cry about anything and everything. A call from my mother. A emoticon in a text message. A voice that I like over This American Life. I will sit at my little desk and sniffle over it all. I am a snifflecake.

So yes, Graduate Schools, this is getting so ridiculous. I almost (…almost) just wish that you would reject me now instead of making me wait. I just want my sanity back.

***Sorry this is such a long entry, but it’s been keeping me up for months, and I would really benefit from hearing what you have to say. Even if you prefer lurking and don’t believe in leaving comments. Or you’d deathly embarrassed if I were to find out you read my blog (trust me, I don’t care. It’s why I put my blog url as my gchat messages). I need some insight onto which direction my life is heading.***

My mom was never too thrilled about my choice to pursue a Ph.D. She has several reasons for suggesting a different life for me, but when she announced her primary reason over the phone, I was caught off guard. “You are a girl. Girls should not tread that path.”

Before I dive into my thoughts on this, I would like make a quick defensive side note about my mother. Sure, she isn’t exactly a feminist. But she is a very strong woman who studied, and excelled at, mathematics as an undergraduate, and moved on to become not only the youngest politician, but also the only female politician in her rank at that time. Yes, I highly respect my mom and have always looked up to her as my inspiration is life. So don’t be dissin’ her!

Yet despite her ambitious history, she remains a little traditional. It’s not that she doesn’t think I’m not smart enough or am incapable of getting a Ph.D because I’m a woman. In fact, now that I’ve set my mind onto it, she is insistent that I go only to the top school and graduate with a strong recommendation from a world-famous advisor under my belt. Instead, I think she envisioned adult Shanying as settling down early to a mostly stress-free job, a happy family, and a comfortable home. The husband should be the one with the Ph.D, working late in lab, and I should be the one who can stay home and focus on the children. She believes in the traditional family hierarchy.

When my mom first brought this up, I was offended. I felt like she was degrading me to a sexist stereotype. I’m an independent woman of the new era! I don’t want to stay at home bearing children and fawning over and making dinner for a successful, rich husband! I argued persistently for graduate school and she finally gave in, letting me do my thing.

In the past few months, however, I have started to doubt what I really want. I’m approaching a major crossroad in my life, and uncertainty is seeping in at an alarm rate. As I watch myself set off little fires left and right in lab and ruining one synthesis after another, I start wondering if research is truly the right choice in my life. I’m so clumsy and uncreative. I am fascinated by the science I learn in classrooms, but I’ve never had too much success in lab. While I can’t for the life of me correctly synthesize these nanoparticles, I can spend all afternoon scrubbing clean the fume hoods. I can’t quite motivate myself yet to get some data off of the new oxygen detector for a paper, but I sure can’t wait to bake some brownies as an incentive for others to attend a lab safety training.

And so I have found that my mother’s vision of my life is slowly merging into my own. Can it be that I’m just not meant for research? Maybe being “a woman” is just better suited for me. Perhaps I should go look for that perfect husband and start a family. I could pick up knitting again, experiment with gardening, learn how to tailor garments, and perfect more recipes. And even better, I could devote my time to raising my child, which is something my heart brims with excitement just thinking about. Yes, I love my future child already. Is this scary?

Essentially, I have come to this rather grave existential crisis now. What sort of a person am I, and what do I want out of life? Do I just want a relaxing office job or do I want to go through six grueling years of graduate school in hopes for that stimulating and challenging research position? And is it normal to, well, be such a goddamn woman?

Please enlighten me with your opinion and/or your experiences and stories. I don’t usually care about comments, but I really am at a sort of crisis now, and could use some advice.

Dear Diary,

Today was my first day in lab. I started a fire in the garbage bin and set off the fire alarm.

I don’t think I’m cut out for this whole research thing anymore.

I am currently sitting in the UCSD library, which is apparently where a frighteningly large population of Asian students congregate. I am reminded again, as I am on a daily basis, how much I can’t stand Asians. But I will save that discussion for another day.

It has been many years since I’ve been to the UCSD library. Last time I was here I was a young high school student suffering from a complete lack of self-esteem and common sense. (Nothing much has changed.) Sitting in the library, where I spent many countless hours in awe of the more mature and smarter college students, has conjures up many more high school memories. The high school Shanying is a little complicated, but let me try to sum it up in one sentence: I sort of thought I was badass. If you were to ask me why, here is what I would have said:

1. I lost my virginity.
2. I skipped a lot of classes all the time, especially senior year.
3. Robert, a boy two grades above me, fingered me in French class when I was a freshman.
4. I snuck out of my house in the middle of the night regularly to hang out with friends.
5. I had a one-night stand during my Junior homecoming.

However, a few years into college I realized that I was pretty much the opposite of badass in high school. In fact, I had a very very lame high school experience. Allow me to demonstrate by further explaining the list of badass activities above:

1. I lost my virginity. I wanted to be a kissing virgin until I got married. In fact, I refused to kiss my prom date (on the cheek) after being dared to during our rockin’ “after party.” But then senior year, several months into dating him, my then-boyfriend kissed me unexpectedly and unconsentingly. I went home and cried into my pillow for 30 minutes.
2. I skipped a lot of classes. I actually had so many unexcused absences, the school almost didn’t let me graduate. Senior year, I skipped classes at least twice a week. To go to the library. One time, I skipped a morning class to go to the library only to realize that it was closed that morning. With nothing else to do, I ended up going back to school.
3. Robert fingered me in French class. In fact, I announced to the whole class that Robert had fingered me. Unfortunately, I did not realize that “giving someone the finger” is different from “fingering someone.”
4. I snuck out of my house in the middle of the night. But, as you probably already realized, not to get trashed, or to experiment with drugs. I never even knew that high schoolers drank alcohol. Instead, my friends and I went to the elementary school playground to sit on the swings and sing Disney songs. Of all the activities I have listed, this is by far the coolest. Too bad cool != badass.
5. I had a one-night stand. I had proudly told my college friend about my one-night stand. Needless to say, my college friend was shocked and appalled for reasons I did not understand until a few years later. I now know that dancing somewhat provocatively with someone whose name I didn’t know during homecoming does not exactly count as a one-night stand.

It’s a good thing I’ve matured so much since college.

…

Just wanted to follow-up on several of my entries.

1) I got my luggage back, thanks to those who asked about it. It arrived on Christmas day! Best present ever

2) I am now addicted to google reader. I RSS feed EVERYTHING. Someone stop me.

3) Shanying #2 has removed herself from the blogosphere. Could it be that she was as equally bored as me, and also blog-searched for “shanying”? And if she did, could she actually gotten offended by my calling a 13-year old “annoying and Asian”? Because that’s what they are/I was by default, you know. I hope she has learned a valuable lesson of how the internet is full of bitter, old, sarcastic women like myself.

In other news, I have been awake since 4 in the morning for no known reason. I probably would have fallen back asleep if I hadn’t started thinking about relationships. I recently got in touch with an old English teacher of mine through facebook. In her message to me, she referred to me as a “college-graduate.” Those words almost shocked me when I read them. A “college graduate” sounds so mature, like someone who is certain. I am not even certain if I am certain about anything!

That is why, while lying in the darkness of a Sedona hotel, listening to my dad snore, I thought about the future and relationships. Maybe I worry or think too much. But I just can’t but wonder when will I settle down and have a family. Where will I be? With whom? Because honestly, sometimes I just can’t wait.

…but I have to put this up for the laughs.

I was super bored today and I decided to search for “Shanying” under Blogger. And this is what I found. I thought to myself, jesus, she sounds incredibly annoying and Asian. And then I remembered my own page at that age (making my old blog known again could be my biggest mistake ever).

You tell me. Who was worse?

For those that don’t know, I’m TA’ing 5.112 this term. It’s a job I’ve been looking forward to forever already. I talk a lot, and I love Chemistry, so the idea of talking for 50 minutes in front of a class twice a week where they have to listen to me or else I’ll fail them? That’s heaven.

Well it turns out it’s really not that easy. The first recitation I let everyone out 20 minutes early because while thinking I overplanned, I actually underplanned by a lot. But that’s not so bad. What’s bad is that I called one of my students a “tool” for knowing the molecular weight of Silver and Bromine. Really, Shanying? Even your closest friends are offended when you constantly call them a tool. Are you really going to call your obviously very bright student that? That kid probably switched out of my recitation.

But I wouldn’t know, because (reason #2 why I’m a bad TA) I have the memory of a goddamned goldfish. I don’t remember anyone or anything ever. So I have no idea with the exception of like the 3 people sitting in the front row who my students are. In the past week I’ve had several instances where some random kid in the hall smiles and waves and I just give them a confused look back. They were probably all in my recitation, and now think I’m a cold-hearted bitch.

My worst offenses, though, occured during my most recent recitation. Being an overachiever by nature, I decided I would teach my kids something that’s not really on the syllabus but briefly and very passingly discussed in class: Black Body Radiation. And honestly, in order to explain why the Classical theory (which led to the “ultraviolet catastrophy”) does not work, and how Planck’s theory of discrete energies does, you really need to go into a lot of math. The lot of math that I never went through either.

I get up in front of the class and try to explain all this without math. There are a lot of confused faces. So I decide to try an analogy: imagine 10 hungry children, one needier than the other. Oh let’s say they’re like starving African kids or something. A couple of gasps and one awkward laugh. Oops…that really wasn’t politically correct. But I continue, nonetheless: Classical theorists thought that energy was like an apple that could be equally divided, but quantum thought energy was like grapes: discrete. And then I go on to talk a whole lot more about the apple and grapes. At this point I’ve completely lost the entire class, and I decide to pretend that whole 20 minute segment never happened in my life, and I switch topics to the photoelectric effect. And hell, just for fun, I’m going to say something about the “ejaculation of electrons from the metal.” I am ignoring the “oh my god” from the back of the room and am just going to laugh and giggle, by myself, at the front of the class for the rest of the recitation, to the point that I can’t even talk any more.

Verbally abused a student? Check.
Made a racist remark? Check.
Confused students even more by failing at explaining anything? Check.
Made sexually explicit remarks in front of whole class, while being incredibly immature about it? Check.

The truth is, I don’t know how the class thinks of me. Maybe they think I’m hilarious. Maybe they think I’m chill and approachable. Maybe they think I’m offensive and just can’t teach right. One thing’s for certain: they all think I’m retarded.

And they couldn’t be more correct.