Just Another College Girl

College and TV

2011-02-18T14:03:00.001-08:00

Ever since I moved off campus, I haven't had TV. One; it's expensive to buy cable. Two: I'd barely watch it. and Three: I can get most of them online. Thank you technology and piracy.

Hulu, Fancast, etc. have found a way to provide free TV shows online so no one actually has to buy cable. The down side is that you have to wait the day after to watch the show, but I don't care. I miss the shows timing anyways. The convenience of being able to watch whatever shows I want whenever I want is the things that technology is trying to achieve; accessibility whenever and whoever. As long as if you can find a site and have Internet, you can get it. I have found many other unofficial sites that have let me watch my favorite shows all the way from first season.

This trend however has created the issue of cable providers dying out and the Internet TV booming. Now hulu and fancast have "plus systems" that charge a monthly fee. Internet has caused the increase in the use of only one system for multiple purposes. Our phones now have to be cameras, message machines, internet, and for calling. Our computers are for work, home, entertainment, and etc.

More corporate companies have realized the new market on the internet. Youtube now has commercials that drive everyone up the wall. Now music videos can only be posted by the record company, best known example Vevo.

This now creates an odd mix between the known piracy and illegalities that the Internet has a reputation of versus the now legal corps online. Commercials are taking over the web and shows are legally put on the Internet, all the while that music is still illegally being downloaded and shows torrented.

We will eventually reach a point where the internet will be cleaned up by the corporations and more law enforcement about the murky waters of the Internet will have to be decided. I see the Internet being the main technology of the future which will change the internet from the free expressionist place to more and more corporate and commercialized. This will only reinforce the commercialism in the world and kill any chance of creativity since few will want to visit individually made sites unless they are to par of the professional designed corps.

Technology and the Workforce

2011-02-12T17:19:00.000-08:00

I'm currently applying for internships and with that or any applying process comes rejection. For every three sent there will probably be one (or two in my case) rejections. I recently have had a deep pride ripping, soul destroying incident. Thanks to technology, job applications can be sent online. Also thanks to technology, computers usually make the first cut. My first cut...in 20 seconds. Technology and sensitivity are not usually in the same sentence for a reason. Though I knew I didn't have much of a chance, but 20 seconds? At least give it a couple of hours to turn cold, dejected by the lack of love and acceptance, doomed to wander the scours of San Diego to try to find someone willing to take on a willing girl... ok, now it's turning weird. The point is that I hate applying. Applying to colleges, programs, internships, jobs, so on and so forth, hate them all.

Unlike the computer and it's cold motherboard, I have emotions. Let's get help. Cue ELIZA!
Eliza: Hello. I am ELIZA. How can I help you?
You: I'm sad.
Eliza: Does it please you to believe I am sad?
Thank you Eliza for proving the point that technology sometimes completely fails.

I do not blame technology for my lack of ability to wow employers. I however hold a deep grudge that's deep rooted...one day I'll get my revenge...

I have to grudgingly give credit to technology where its due. For without it, I wouldn't have know of the countless internship offerings in my area or have the ability to quickly send them my resume without the delay and risk of it being lost by mail.

Even with it's benefits, I still can hate for it the fact now that it's slowly turned the process of work environments and applying into a system that tries anyway to avoid any human interactions. If you can do it over the phone, why bother have a meaning? I don't want to walk over three offices to hand something to an coworker. I'll just email it. When there are human interactions in the workplace, more often than not, they are forced or with some selfish intent (sucking up to the client to keep business, sucking up to the boss to possibly get retired, sucking up to the coworker to have your shift covered, a gossip circle to make your life seem temporarily better). The fact that with systems that process and categorize employees into numbers instead of people and the start of the human replaceable workforce much like replaceable mechanical parts. Employees come in and out filling the previous role that is generic and forces the employee to fit the mold of the company or get out.

I guess I'm happy to be in my little college bubble for one year, but after that...that I can not imagine right now.

Experiencing my culture and Internet is not helping

2011-02-02T15:10:00.000-08:00

It's Wednesday and I'm cleaning. This is a miracle in my mother's eyes. Now with that said, there must be reason why I'm cleaning on a Wednesday afternoon even though I have two midterms in the week coming up to be studying for. Chinese New Year. To be correct, tomorrow is Chinese New Year.

The tradition is that you have to clean the day before Chinese New Year since it's bad luck to "clean away" the luck that the new year brings (and plus it just sucks to be eating and having guest over with a dirty house.) I have many fond memories of the desperate clean up before guest come over and then the traditional "Oh excuse us, our house is so messy.") That story aside, the point is that it made me think of a comment that a friend told me that Asian born and raised in America are more traditional that "real" Asians.

At first when my friend said that I instantly rejected it, but as I was on my hands and knees wiping the kitchen floor since I never got around in the seven months of living in my apartment to buying a mop, that there is some truth to that. It made me think, how come I'm cleaning my apartment while my equally ABC (American born Chinese) roommate upstairs isn't? Then that got me thinking, how many people actually hold those small traditions to this day? I know traditions are dying out, but at the end, the small ones stick, like taking your shoes off at the door or some how giving a small bow when meeting or leaving someone? (or those somehow stuck to me)

It would seem surprising at the idea that Asians not in Asia are more traditional than Asians in Asia (there were too many Asia's in that one sentence). The fact is that I'm guessing that many Asians here don't take a lot of time in their life to actually study their history and even then it's probably from the Western view anyways. I really haven't taken the time and what I know is from video games, random Museum exhibits, and whatever my parents sparingly say. (Thank you Dynasty Warriors for teaching me my dynasties and how ridiculous armor was in the past.) Our only source to our culture is most our parents, who are given their age, are probably very traditional. My mom makes soups every night with weird herbs and stuff that I don't even know what they are even translated in English. With that, I guess it can't be helped that we're uber traditional. The fact is that not all Asians end up wanting to be doctors, lawyers, or insert own job that's high paying and very prestigious even though that's what most ABC's are raised up being told to do or try to do.

The times I took to ask my mother, who was born and raised in China until the age of 18 when she immigrated to San Francisco, she seemed hesitant to talk about the history. She left during time time of the Communism and Mao Zedong. It's like she doesn't want to remember it or talk about it. So how am I supposed to learn my history if most of my true reliable sources don't want to talk about it?

Then the internet comes into the story. In a time where internet makes everything connected and global, it would seem like it helps my cause is seeing how "my people" really think. The ironic thing about is that mostly all the information is the same thing you'll get out of a textbook. Nothing from the "Chinese" view that I could read (I'm not fluent in Chinese) was from their view or had their own spin. There was one site though that kind of did. I got introduced to a website, http://www.chinasmack.com which supposedly a lot of "real" Chinese people go on. Instead of making me feel somehow connected to these people, like I'm really Chinese, not the white-washed version, it made me feel like I hate these people. Perhaps it's just the internet bringing out the worst people and the worst of them, but the way people commented, the way people judge others, it just made me feel horrible to have the same background culture as them. Comments such as "Are they really this YY (strange in thinking)? Bang zi (offensive name for Koreans) aren’t stupid to this degree, are they?"

I'm sure that not all "true" Chinese people are like the ones that comment on this site, but it sure has given some adult cynicism into the day I go back to my "homeland." Sites like these just show how even though internet has made the world more "global," it still doesn't get rid of the racism, stereotypes, or hate that exist. The internet may be global, but unlike the often said idea that with the spread of ideas creates understanding, most of the time it just creates global discourse and reinforcement of the disconnect.

An ELIZA fail

2011-01-27T19:21:00.000-08:00

In one of my college classes, we learned about a robot program made to act as a psychiatrist. I found a link online that uses the same program. I got a major psychiatrist failure. This is how my "visit" was supposed to go:

Eliza: Hello. I am ELIZA. How can I help you?
Me: I'm worried.

Instead it went something like this:

Eliza: Hello. I am ELIZA. How can I help you?
Me: I want to kill my boss.
Eliza: Why do you say your boss?

....major fail.

If you want to try if for yourself, here's a link. http://www-ai.ijs.si/eliza/eliza.html

‘Falling Standards in the universities’ or is it?

2011-01-25T21:10:00.000-08:00

I study (really study) for about 30 hours a week. Yet, experts say that we college students as a whole are studying less outside of school, about 10 hours compared to 1961. So that technically means I’m supposed to be studying 40 hours a week. Let’s take a look at my schedule I live at school two days from eight to six thirty with about two hour breaks through out the day which leaves me with five days to study. So divide 40 hours in five days…8 hours a day, a full time job! Yeah right. That’s a full working day. I’m sorry, but I have a short attention span and even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to remember all that I’m reading and studying. Working on the field is different than cramming your head with knowledge. Working I’d be able to handle for eight hours, but for efficient studying that is retained after that eight hours…not happening.

NY Times has articles that facilitate debate called, “Room for Debate.” The article of reference, "Falling Standards in Universities," http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/08/22/why-are-college-students-studying-less/standards-have-fallen-in-universities, happens to discuss how universities are failing since students are studying as much anymore. Since when did the studying time become the only factor in determining how ‘good’ a university is? Last time I checked, university was about self-exploration, adjusting to adult life slowing, and getting a piece of paper that cost thousands of dollars. The article suggest it’s the failure on the students that decline the university quality. Here’s a wild suggestion, maybe it’s not us?

Think about it, we are in a classroom filled with hundreds, 300 plus last time I checked, with only one teacher and a couple of TAs for a ten week class, or 12 if a semester, judged on a midterm and a final that somehow shows what we learned. I bet even the college students from the 60’s would end up like us failures.

I don’t want to blame entire the school since they have it hard to change a long established system and with the demand and supply for the college benefit which by survey shows an increased wage in the long run in comparison to high school students. (See? I am learning something. Notice all the economic terms in that sentence? That’s two years and a quarter of learning.) Perhaps no one considered that there are somethings that are supposed to be learned that can’t be learned in the classroom. Like…how to do your laundry, realizing how hard it is to find a job, how hard it is to live on your own, how to socialize with your future coworkers, find a social network for a future job, suck up to future potential employers, that’s just the top of the iceberg. Just because it doesn’t come from a book, doesn’t mean it isn’t important.

Even then, let me point out an interesting fact. Somethings we learn will be obsolete or old by the time we get out. Especially for Med school students, they have it bad, three years and everything they learned is pretty much old school = useless. Also the fact is that most of what we need, we learn on the field. Engineering students, on the other hand, they need everything they need, circuits don’t change that fast. In my case, computers have come to replace all the calculus I’m doing right now. The computers are taking over the world! (Cue the sci-fi horror film music and bring in Nicholas Cage.)

One quote of interest, “Today’s student lives in a world of hyper-connectivity and information exchange. They receive their information in five-minute episodes and it comes in many modalities -- sound, text, video. NY article” Here’s something interesting, technology make not an education better. There’s no proven relationship that with more technology the better a school or any statistically evidence showing the correlation between the two variables. (I am on fire with the economic terms!) It has its benefits, but sometimes it’s just a hassle. Somehow since we are the generation of technology, all of us must be great with technology, not. When I’m required to do videos, digital projects, basically anything more than type a paper or open a file, I’m out of my league. Also all that “hyper-connectivity and information exchange?” Most of those information exchanges are not very accurate written by hacks with ego problems and the connectivity basically means Facebook. Not very helpful. Again, technology does not solve all problems.

So to Philip Babcock and Milly Marks, good job on a research paper that basically points the obvious and draws to the first conclusion. I can't speak for all college students, but for the ones I know and myself, we work hard. Besides, since when did leisure time become such a bad thing?

Documenting the Life of 20-Somethings

2011-01-17T14:29:00.000-08:00

As an extension to the article of the "20-somethings," they asked 13 photographers to take pictures of what it feels like to being in their 20's. I thought I'd do the same even though I don't consider myself an artist.

Being a 20-something, means that we're never in one place for too long. We have to be ready to get up and go to where ever we have to be next. Technically our home really isn't our home since we don't live there and where we stay for school isn't really our place since we don't own it. Also this means we are supposed only travel with what we need or think we need.

To see the images the artist took, go to, "Documenting the Life of 20-Somethings," http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/08/22/magazine/20100822-iphone-gallery.html?ref=magazine

The 20-somethings- the Emerging Adulthood

2011-01-17T14:21:00.000-08:00

I’m a third year in college. This means I’m one year away from having to make a choice; to either to keep living in the nice little bubble called academics by escaping to grad school or to plunge into the real world, a.k.a find a job. It’s normally at this time where through the panic students start to truly evaluate what they need and want. Not the illusions where all the offers in the world will come and where we have unlimited choices, but the reality that we are somewhat limited based on what’s available and how far we want to try to get them. Then to be considered an adult in society, first comes a job, then comes marriage, then come a baby in a rocking carriage.

Childhood rhymes aside, in an article from the NY Times, “What is it about 20-somethings?” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html , scientists are seeing that like many things of our time, Generation Y are mixing things up once again. We aren’t following our parent’s recipe to adulthood. We’re taking our sweet time getting there and making it our own way.
They discuss the contradictions in our own laws that don’t make the defined age of adulthood murky. You’re an adult at 18, but you’re not allowed to drink until 21. Sorry! The fact is that the milestones that our parents had or psychologist have established don’t apply to us. We don’t have a clear step stones to get to “adulthood.” We all trudge along at our own pace to where we think we’ll be best off.

They discuss the reasons of the delayed “maturity,” which caught my interest the most. I would be considered one of the more privileged, since I’m lucky enough to have my parents support most of my tuition. This is a great/horrible thing. It’s great since its one thing less to worry about, but it brings so much pressure knowing that I’m using up their money and that they have so much hope and expectation out of me. Like one girl in the article, Jennifer 25, says, “It’s somewhat terrifying to think about all the things I’m supposed to be doing in order to ‘get somewhere’ successful: ‘Follow your passions, live your dreams, take risks, network with the right people, find mentors, be financially responsible, volunteer, work, think about or go to grad school, fall in love and maintain personal well-being, mental health and nutrition.’ When is there time to just be and enjoy?” Adds a 24-year-old from Virginia: “There is pressure to make decisions that will form the foundation for the rest of your life in your 20s. It’s almost as if having a range of limited options would be easier.” This rings true with me as well. There so much to think about that we are supposed to do and know already that I feel like I’m too far behind to catch up. I see everyone else knowing what they’re doing or making something of themselves and here I am just trying to get through life the best I can. It’s kind of depressing sometimes.
But the fact that the kids of this time are maturing later is kind of ironic considering that many young teenagers, even as young as 10 and 11, are already acting like and dressing like 17 year olds. There is the two contradicting view that our kids are growing up too fast vs the our kids are not acting adult like enough. This contradiction is often seen when kids complain that about the opposing arguments they’re parents give them. “You’re an adult now. You should be behaving more maturely.” “You’re too young to understand…” The parents, or more specifically “helicopter parents” is one of the factors that the psychologists of the article think may be leading to this emerging adulthood. We all have or know a parent that does this.

Ironically, on this stem of thought. My mom loves to “talk.” (It’s never comparing. No matter if the “conversation” goes on for 30 minutes or an hour of just her talking, it’s never comparing. She’s just “explaining” to me to “help me.” Yes, she’s a helicopter parent and blind to that fact or the term.) Every time I come home for break, she loves to “talk” to me about her friend’s kids that are my age that are more independent and successful even though they’re parents don’t speak English and/or don’t care about them. Which gets me thinking, am I being stilted because my parents care a little too much? It’s not their fault that they care too much to stop me from growing properly, is it?
Whatever the answer to why the phenomenon exist isn’t relevant. The fact is that it does exist for most. The only thing to do is to find out why and how to get to where we need to be. That’s the hard part. I can only imagine one year down the road. Whatever happens after that is questionable.