mini mi

"Are you an elitist?/18 revealing ways to know for sure"

2008-09-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

one of my dearest friends sent me an article entitled, "Are you an elitist?/18 revealing ways to know for sure" (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/09/12/notes091208.DTL). it is a list of "elitist" stereotypes, one that is supposed to reveal how cool it is for you to identify with the given stereotypes. at the end of the list, i think you are supposed to realize that you are not elitist. you're just liberal, and thank goodness.

i've been reading alot lately. mostly reading just makes me think, "words are slippery."

what i am trying to say to(?), within, and (yet) with all this slippery language is that it's hard for me to hear/see values with which i identify ascribed to images with which i don't identify. it's hard for me to accept that images which hold value for me are viewed with such disdain by "liberal elitists." it's hard when the images in which i hold my values are used in ways that are not in line with... i won't say values. i will say that they are used in ways that are not useful, not helpful, and not understanding. ok, fine -- so used in ways counter to my values, i give up.

i've somewhat digressed. let me try again: i feel as though i've been robbed of language. how do i talk about how i feel when all the images have been claimed?

maybe, i am naive. maybe i am a product of too much time spent in my room. or maybe this man is a jack-ass. will you read this with me? this one is among my favorites, #15 in "ways to know if you are an elitist":

15. You speak a foreign language. This implies you might understand something of the world, have an interest in a culture other than your own, or have perhaps even traveled to some exotic foreign land that isn't Texas or New Jersey or Hawaii, a place where they like weird cheeses and don't fear gay people and ride bicycles to the opera.

because (starting to look glazed with strange annoyance), because if you "speak a foreign language" you clearly know, wait -- he said, "you might understand [my emphasis] something of the world." right, because all the people who ever spoke another language have understood others' experiences. because people who speak foreign (and note that "foreign" here means languages other than English) languages always treat people well. because language has clearly made this man such a kinder and more accepting human being, as he has clearly used his amazing ability to write long sentences in such a non-combative manner. because (and i don't care if he is merely trying to be funny) when he makes Texas an "exotic" country and figures it in opposition to another "exotic" country where "they like weird cheeses and don't fear gay people," he in one stroke has 1) expatriated me from his preferred slice of the United States, as i am from Texas, 2) located all the positive possibilities of "exotic" in Europe, which therefore 3) removes other "exotic" countries such as, say, China or Taiwan (where by the way, they don't always like cheese and might fear gay people) from the realm of acceptable oppositional forces, and has thus essentially (1-3) erased the viability of both my lived home and my family's imagined home.

clearly, liberals understand everything. and they never marginalize anyone. and i -- as i am from Texas, often pray, and enjoy eating pork-filled dumplings -- it is impossible that i might also be complex.

i have homework to do.

update

2008-09-14T09:52:00.000-07:00

i sleep in my bed again. i also open the window, run a fan, and don ear plugs. honestly, it's not so bad, but i am loathe to give up my prior rage.

she returns

2008-09-07T22:29:00.000-07:00

for some, blogs are written to reveal perspective, or written in order to share life events. i think, for me, it is time i accepted that my blog is about catharsis (cathexsis?)

in a past life, i would offer some rudimentary justification here. so... (insert rudimentary justification)

i live in an apartment in which there never ceases to be noise. most of it puddles at the corners of my bedroom. at this very moment, there is someone playing music; it sounds as if it is radio music. it is emanating from the far left corner of my room, but it is uncertain as to whether it is originating from under my floorboards or from next door. civil (if somewhat nagging) requests have returned me no peace, merely curses. i would complain, except that i cannot find the source of the noise. one neighbor blames another, and all neighbors are of the opinion that i should simply "get used to living in an apartment!"

persistent noise creates in me a persistent desire to do violence. instead (of say, burning down my neighbors' doors) i invent fantasies of rest, create actual fairy tales in order to cope. "my bedroom is actually a walk-in closet. and my living room is my bedroom" (yes, i now sleep in the living room.) "it's wonderful to have two rooms for the price of one." and i ignore that i am angry that it is necessary for me to learn to cope with my home. because home was supposed to be where one goes for comfort. the home i created for myself was supposed to be, was meant to be, should have been a space/a site of quiet, somewhere -- a where that was/is apart.

no, there was no way i could have known that my apartment is a sound-trap.

and such is the nature of broken fantasies. they create rage: strange, primal rages. and there is not much one can do about this derivative of anger, i have learned. at least, there is not much i know to do about such rage. there is nothing to do, really -- besides function.

and the only functional thing for me to do is to walk out of my now-closet, into my new bedroom, and go to sleep.

though tomorrow, i am calling the landlord.

Journal Entry

2008-06-03T21:40:00.000-07:00

I have been reading Annie Proulx’s “The Soldier’s Tale” out of The New Yorker which I bought for $5.40 at a stray news stand.

I was at a Borders this past week. I have not been in a bookstore for a long time, not a large one. I stood in front of the bestseller rack and felt as if I were in a foreign country. I stared at the selection and surveyed what, in my head, was a cross-section of Americana. A new memoir by a “fat, mean girl,” an analysis of India and China, maybe a million references to elephants (Elephants meaning India, Elephants meaning Republicans, Fiction: Water for Elephants, etc.), a guide to men written by "an ex-bad boy" for women. I admit that I picked up the guide to men and leafed through it, also admit to making my friend at least a little annoyed because I refused to spend money on it but also couldn’t seem to put it down. He was hungry, “OK. I’m going to walk out this door. When you decide what to do, I will be outside.” I quickly put the book down and ran after him. Sometimes, drastic measures must be taken.

I doubt I would have been able to leave the bookstore on my own. While still inside and standing in front of the literary essays shelf, I picked up an Annie Dillard essay and thought about how I had never finished Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I looked at Joan Didion sitting next to her. I looked up at the new Michael Chabon hardcover and let my eyes wander down the shelf and remarked to my friend that being at this bookstore “makes me feel like a person who’s lost her religion.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I just felt like saying it,” I replied. By which I do not mean that I was lying, only that I did not understand the sensation.

I have started almost every sentence with “I.” I think I have what people term heartbreak. It’s a feeling of only being able to hear or see things that are very far away. It’s as if everything is very far away. I read the newspaper to remind myself that the world is still populated. But sometimes when conversing, I feel my eyes wander, and then I’m seeing a road over the horizon or the lights above the bookshelves in the bookstore and that person’s voice is a clerk answering a question or the hum of a car on the highway.

This is from “The Soldier’s Tale,” “They sat frozen, like survivors in the aftermath of an explosion…The air vibrated.”

emoting thesis

2008-03-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

me: every so often, i have the urge to scream "i am awesome!"
just to remind myself
one needs to do these things when faced with a large, looming paper
A: haha
me: and an empty bank account

more from gchat

2008-03-25T21:27:00.000-07:00

me: i can't come. i'm grounded on thursday
S: no worries, thought i'd send you the invite anyway. grounded? you been a bad girl?
me: remember, i haven't worked for like 3 months
S: oh, self grounded
me: instead i just sat down in a pile of nervous breakdown
S: better than sitting in shit
me: granted
S: or maybe not
me: nervous breakdown is cleaner. but then again, shit is easier to clean up
S: nicely put...

thesis progress

2008-03-24T18:48:00.001-07:00

K: how is your thesis coming?
me: i'm having the issue of there being too many things i didn't know i didn't know with too little work done plus too little time to be only now knowing the things i don't know right now.
K: hahaha. awesome sentence construction.

Berkeley

2008-03-15T09:35:00.000-07:00

To quote Brilliant Friend, "(It's) what fuels Berkeley -- Solar Energy and Criticism..."

so deep

2008-02-28T15:59:00.000-08:00

J: wow, i have reached a new low
me: what has happened?
J: so irritated at work that i am now listening to Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg on loop.
me: HA
J: my other important hip hop question is -- if, as asserted at the end of this song, rappers smoke weed every day, wouldn't there be a lot less rapper on rapper violence?

dialogue: concluding one's grad school career

2007-09-30T23:49:00.000-07:00

me: i quit
M: hehehe
me: allow me to say that my thesis needs to be AMAZING
otherwise quitting will feel like running away
therefore, the last thing i do in grad school must be, again, AMAZING
for an MA student, at least
M: hahaha
me: i need to be exonerated
M: it will be sir
it will be
do the reading
write
dance
repeat
me: the end
M: yes
gotta go
love you
don't freak out
i punch your self-doubt
me: love you too
and please, punch away

folklore

2007-09-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

this article is a tribute to alan dundes, who founded my MA program. the student writing about him also posted a folkloric examination as to why Texans are full of shit, which causes my closeted Texan heart to overflow.

a tribute to alan dundes
http://www.majordojo.com/2005/04/a-tribute-to-al.php

taking in sf, literally

2007-06-25T18:08:00.000-07:00

san francisco is either a food lover's paradise or a food lover's hell. meaning -- that i need an extra stomach. dear santa, if i promise to be good, may i have a spare? or maybe a hollow leg?

clown mirrors

2007-06-18T08:07:00.000-07:00

since the third grade, i have considered myself to be a fat person. and i don't know why. i'd like to stop now.

style

2007-06-06T07:16:00.001-07:00

i think i need to switch-up my writing style. how do i do that?

talking to the sisters

2007-06-04T23:45:00.001-07:00

JoieTang: now that mom's gone shopping with me and has seen how much it frustrates me, she keeps calling me with fashion advice
medolie: that's b/c she wants you to get a mate
medolie: duh
medolie: she hates mine
medolie: and alexa is still young
medolie: so she's focusing on you
medolie: before your lake dries up or whatever she said
JoieTang: you guys talked about my lake?
JoieTang: i feel all exposed
medolie: i was laughing pretty hard
JoieTang: oh good grief
medolie: don't let your lake dry up, joy
medolie: b/c then you can't lactate and have huge children
medolie: like the four of us
medolie: hahaha
JoieTang: oh yeah
JoieTang: this is the "if i don't have children, my system won't work" conversation
JoieTang: the system meaning my body
JoieTang: this is mom's "if you have it, you should USE it" logic, which means that my breasts will be wasted if they are not used as bottles
JoieTang: good stuff

so my legs do work...

2007-06-02T12:41:00.000-07:00

today i ran my first 5k.

my little sister says that

2007-05-30T10:03:00.001-07:00

when i drink water from a bottle, i look like a hamster.

i flew home for this

2007-05-29T21:32:00.000-07:00

this past sunday, lee high school graduated approximately 30 of my ex-students. i feel honored to have known them.

every so often...

2007-05-11T19:24:00.000-07:00

sometimes, i feed myself something carb-y, to see if my body will tolerate it. today we tried meat ravioli, and my body is saying a very clear and definite no.

more avoidance

2007-04-29T00:05:00.000-07:00

when i'm tense, i make lists. or i clean.

the curse of negativity

2007-04-14T14:36:00.001-07:00

if i say to my mother, "i don't like ______," i am informed that this is a "burden on my soul." however this information does not help me reach nirvana as i'm sure my mother intended. instead i leave the conversation burdened with the irrefutable knowledge that my soul is asphyxiating under the accumulating weight of my persistent dislikes. moreover, not liking _______ is clearly my fault. if i could only be persuaded to like my tenth grade english teacher, or pantyhose, you know? i would live so much longer.

lapse in logic

2007-04-05T01:37:00.000-07:00

my entire foot was throbbing, so i called my doctor-friend.
"hey, i hate to be that girl who calls you with a health concern, but i just don't know who else to ask."
"what's wrong?"
"it's my foot. it's been hurting since last wednesday, and it's not getting better."
"well, let's see, you mentioned that you went dancing saturday, and sunday too, right? have you been dancing since then?"
"um, i also practiced monday, and i'm going to practice right now."
"and you're asking me why your foot isn't getting better?"

PMS?

2007-04-01T11:13:00.000-07:00

while waiting for my ride to pick me up at the corner of Haight and Ashbury, i ducked into this dive bar to use the restroom. there was a long line, and i took a long time. i took so long that the guy behind me started rattling the door handle, so i think it's safe to assume he was pissed and i admit -- reasonably so.
as i was leaving, a guy who had been watching from the bar stopped me and said, "you took a really long time."
"i know," i replied, "i'm really sorry."
he pointed his index finger at my shoulder,"don't be a whore. " he repeated, "you shouldn't be such a whore."
i walked out without answering. but i was incredibly upset, more than i should have been considering that the comment was from a stringy-haired, bug-eyed, most likely drunk man in a nearly abandoned bar. maybe it was PMS, or maybe i just don't like being called a whore.

apparently, i don't write anymore

2007-02-27T15:30:00.000-08:00

i can't take credit for this article. my sister sent it to me.

Beijingers line up on Queuing Day By Wang Shanshan (China Daily)Updated: 2007-02-12
Waving little red flags, 64-year-old Ma Yingxin and his 62-year-old partner Chen were up to serious business yesterday: the two helped form six queues for people waiting for six buses at a stop in the upmarket Wangfujing shopping area.
The two men were volunteers for Beijing's first "Queuing Day". The event, on the 11th of each month, was launched by the municipal government as part of a campaign for residents to exhibit "civilized behavior" ahead of the 2008 Olympics.
The 11th was picked because the two numbers 1-1 resemble two people lining up.
Thousands of volunteers also hit the streets, according to yesterday's Beijing Evening News. They were sent to 345 of the thousands of bus-stops in the city, said Zhang Huiguang, director of the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau.
They had help in the form of some dressed as Fuwa, the Olympic mascots, who marched through Wangfujing holding banners asking people to line up and to "behave well".
That they did, at least when Ma was there. "More than 80 per cent of people lined up without being asked when they saw the queues," he told China Daily.
In fact, the queues were so orderly that they foxed bus drivers. At Ma's stop, a driver who couldn't decide which queue was for him gingerly stopped the vehicle in front of those he thought were his passengers.
But it was too good to last no sooner did Ma and Chen leave at 5.30 pm, dozens swarmed the stop, and all rushed to arriving buses.
Also, no queues could be found at bus stops where no volunteers had been designated.
"I know it is Queuing Day, but there must be an organizer to help people line up," said a woman in her 40s surnamed Xu. "Otherwise, who is going to do it?"
Queuing used to come naturally for the Chinese, when they bought all kinds of goods ranging from rice to television sets with coupons during the time of the planned economy more than two decades ago.
Today, such queues are a distant memory but officials believe that people lining up wherever needed helps improve the image of the city.
Besides queuing up, Beijing residents are also paying more attention to public behaviour. According to Zhang, the ratio of people spitting in public declined from 8.4 percent in 2005 to 4.9 percent in 2006, and incidents of littering fell from 9.1 percent to 5.3 percent.

best quote ever

2007-01-20T19:34:00.000-08:00

"sexy to me is fatty and sensuous."

decision

2007-01-15T19:49:00.000-08:00

i will make a pillow out of duct tape.

beckham bends

2007-01-12T22:01:00.000-08:00

New York Times editorial:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/13/opinion/13sat4.html

i'm out of titles

2007-01-11T08:55:00.000-08:00

yesterday, i get off the plane in oakland and meet a grad student in berkeley's education department, and we strike up conversation and exchange numbers and then i get on AirBART only to discover that i don't have exact change, so i get off and ask a man where the change machine is, and instead the guy just GIVES me 2 dollars, at which point i say thank you and umm, because i am ever so smooth, and he says no problem and boards his bus. i then return to the AirBART stop where, after a short while, an older gentleman approaches to ask if he needs exact change, and i reply yes, absolutely you do, but he finds exact change, so crisis averted, and he keeps talking to me, and i end up telling him about folklore, and he ends up sitting next to me for the length of the bus ride. at our stop, he gives me his card and says, "i've never met anyone who does what you do. drop me an email and tell me how you are." and i say that i will and privately wonder if it's customary to have met as many people as i've met in the last hour before dragging my suitcase off the bus and onto the BART platform where i get a phone call from a friend who wants to go salsa dancing. so instead of going home i BART to the station closest to his house and he gives me a ride home and then to the club.

the conclusion to this stream of "and then's" is that i was dancing within 30 minutes of getting into Berkeley. i take that as a good omen.

more from the world of AIM

2006-12-12T11:54:00.000-08:00

JoieTang: i'm sort of feeling bleak today
JoieTang: i apologize if you can smell the sour grapes
Rated NC 82: i thought it was a fine cabernet
JoieTang: that is the sweetest thing you've ever said to me
Rated NC 82: lies!
Rated NC 82: what about the time i called you sugar bottoms?

paper updates

2006-12-11T13:14:00.000-08:00

JoieTang: I made it to page 7
jelaka85: oh sweet
jelaka85: you are totally kicking that paper's ass
JoieTang: actually it's kicking mine
JoieTang: i hurt from sitting for so long
jelaka85: squat?
JoieTang: i'm kneeling now

anything for food

2006-12-11T12:19:00.000-08:00

JoieTang: i've become an angry person
JoieTang: angry, hungry, and lazy, but primarily angry
jelaka85: but you're always so happy
JoieTang: well, i find my current state of wretchedness incredibly amusing. maybe i should do stand-up comedy
JoieTang: but my material would only be inside jokes, so no one would get it. and i would get booed off the stage
JoieTang: but if they threw food at me, then i could eat
JoieTang: which would rock
JoieTang: i'm posting this somewhere
jelaka85: hahaha

frayed

2006-12-09T13:46:00.000-08:00

the term, in the infinitive, is "to intellectualize." i have the capacity to intellectualize my emotions, and i do so because it enables me to act responsibly. it has served me well thus far. but now i find that i'm starting to get numb at the edges. and it scares me.

three little words

2006-12-08T20:21:00.000-08:00

i'm so tired.

jose cruz

2006-12-04T14:48:00.000-08:00

i am sitting in the folklore archives. my phone rings. a teacher from lee high school tells me that jose cruz, an ex-student, has just passed the English TAKS. i literally RUN out of the building, and as soon as i am outside, i scream.

i take no credit for his success, but i'm nonetheless overwhelmed. someone i love has just reached the summit of his personal mount everest. congratulations, jose.

anti what?

2006-12-03T11:47:00.000-08:00

i have a friend who constantly makes fun of god. recently, i've begun to wonder about this, because if he doesn't believe in god, why does he spend so much time making fun him/her? doesn't the reference assume existence? i think yes, unless he's actually ridiculing the people who believe, which would include myself, and i'm not sure that's particularly friendly.

it's not that i don't find religion funny. i think it is -- hysterically contradictory and hopelessly flawed. elton john might have the right idea in fact. ban religion; it's such a useless source of conflict. still, i will err on the side of flippant, ignore religiously inspired wars, and say that without idiot believers, certain people would have no comic material. and while many have conceived of a world without god, i don't think anyone has yet conceived of a world without humor.

room with a view

2006-12-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

i live in a very small room with a very big window. actually, the window is a sliding door that comprises the entire fourth wall of my room. at the moment, the vertical blinds are drawn against the sun, but i've opened the door so that the breeze makes them shudder.

drugs of choice

2006-12-01T11:07:00.000-08:00

i practice avoidance therapy. on thursday night, i suggest to myself that maybe i will wake up and use the morning to run and to study, all the while knowing that this will not happen. when my alarm goes off on friday morning, i will listen to npr for an hour and a half. then i will roll out of bed, turn on my computer, and proceed to watch all of my thursday night television on abc.com. i will watch two shows back to back -- ugly betty and grey's anatomy. and when i'm done, i will feel better.

people talk about self-medicating with various things. the other night, a friend wrote that she had chosen to "self-medicate with sushi." a boy i once knew told me that beer was his "drug of choice." a few weeks ago my sister called me from a bookstore because she had "read all of the harry potter books" and what was she going to do now? she needed to know, what other book would facilitate catharsis?

sushi, beer, harry potter, ugly betty and grey's anatomy on a friday morning. i'm not sure if such actions are meaningful, but maybe they're necessary. my mother once asked me why i studied stories when there were other, more useful disciplines. first off, i don't think i ever truly studied stories, per se. but more to the point, i wish that i had, because they have been endlessly useful to me.

latrinalia

2006-11-15T11:39:00.000-08:00

scrawled on a stall in the women's restroom was, " I dare you to skip class..." under it, someone had written in blue ink, "at UCB? ha! the asians would flip out." i admit, i thought this was quite funny.

time out

2006-11-14T20:25:00.000-08:00

when i was younger, i used to wish that someone would walk in on me doing something irregular. such as, standing on my head or doing cartwheels down a hill.
there are things that are true about or for ourselves which have no voice. at least, that has been the case for me. for example, there are people to whom i can no longer apologize; it would be too much.
and so sometimes, i dream of subversions. if i dropped a letter on the ground at this and this time, this person would find it and then... honestly, my mind is like a shakespearan comedy, except that i don't expect the ending to involve a marriage. how do i explain? there is a mad desire in me to express without obligating others to react or reciprocate in any way. there is a supposition, not completely unfounded, that when one person speaks, another must respond. but i do not wish to enact that violence.
so, i dream of subversions. and stand on my head with my bedroom door open.

in which i finally give up

2006-11-09T23:28:00.000-08:00

you know, i have a mother who calls to ask me if i'm meeting people. by people she means men, to which i say no. i say that i'm a woman in the humanties and that there are no men (i'm skipping the diatribe on why that might be.), and then she suggests that i make a foray into the business world, where the men are, and then i reply, "that's ridiculous" and that i am not going to change my profession in order to procure (procure -- as if this imagined man were a pair of shoes) a someone. and then she says, "nono, that's not what i meant. i meant just to make yourself available." ah yes, available. excuse me, i am the pair of shoes. my mistake.

unable

2006-11-04T10:27:00.000-08:00

this is one of the days, among so many others this week, that i wake up and, within the first 5 minutes, give up. i stay in bed for hours. i get up to drink water or go to the restroom and then almost run back to bed. otherwise, i have to smile. i have to make decisions, basic decisions. what to wear, what to eat, how to feel. yes, i have to decide how to feel, because the default is to feel nothing.
that's not exactly true. i do feel. i feel fuzzy, the way a tv looks when the reception is out, which reminds me of a poetry class i took when i was nineteen. my professor said there was no way i could feel "dark." now i understand. as there is no way to feel a color, the message behind "feeling dark" is unclear, yes -- definitely a principle of good writing. but i wonder about alternatives. i don't know how else to say whatever this is, nor do i know what to do. currently, my only solution is to wake up earlier. give up between 7 and 10 instead of 10 and 1 in the afternoon.

growing pains

2006-11-04T09:56:00.000-08:00

today, i looked in the mirror and didn't see my own face. i saw the reflections of the people i affect.

the kid table

2006-10-29T23:14:00.000-08:00

i'm too short for my desk. i keep meaning to buy a taller chair but never quite get around to it. today, i got fed up with not being able to reach this keyboard and found some phonebooks. i'm sitting on them now, and i must say -- the world looks good from up here.

skin deep

2006-10-29T10:10:00.000-08:00

my spelling has become an embarrassment, and i think everything needs a hyphen. this could be a result of my master's program, because in folklore we're all about isolated cultures meeting modernity, modernity defining "the folk," hybridity, cultural integrity, and the consistently contemporary nature of the past. all folkloric events are events in the margins of history. right. thus, the hyphens.
honestly, it all makes very little sense to me. i'm trying, these days, to get underneath the words. and in the effort, the words have followed me into my dreams. i'm not sure what the anxiety is, but it's very palpable. there is always, in my dreams, a panic of violence -- of people enacting unseen atrocities towards other peoples, emphasis on "unseen." while asleep, i see people fighting over jazz as if it were a plot of land and walt disney stealing grimm's fairy tales. i also see the children who watched disney growing up grow up to realize that there is no single evil to vanquish and no castle in the sky. and it's like watching the re-death of santa clause, but worse. when i wake up, i feel helpless. and scared, i'm always scared.
there are always faces across a table -- there is a man arguing that rock n' roll was a black man's creation, "you only think of it as a white man's sound because that was the face that sold the records" (circa 1950's), and then there is another who replies, "yes, that was wrong. but times have changed and haven't we made contributions since then?" then there is the liberal idea of forgetting; it's time to forget, time to move on and reconcile. let us be a color-blind society. and then there is the backlash, "what do you mean forget? you never remembered us to begin with, and color-blind is just another word for white."
and somewhere in there, there are the voices that are not black or white but something else entirely, though, of course, then you have to ask if a voice has a color at all. what happens when a chinese girl decides to dance salsa? nothing. she's just dancing. but that's also what elvis said.
he said he was just playing music, whatever came naturally to him. but history reads him differently. he stole chuck berry's knees. he stole big mama thorton's hound dog blues. he was a white man, said his producer, who had a black sound, and that made them a million dollars (though according to NPR, kurt cobain is now the highest grossing dead musician. sorry elvis.) the question teachers like to ask in class is "what is our responsibility?" i want to know what that question means.
for myself and for now, i think i have the fortunate misfortune of just not being particularly good at what i do. because obviously it's not a problem until somebody notices. mediocrity unite.

quote of the day, "yeah, I knew you were depressed, because you've been writing about food."

2006-10-24T21:34:00.000-07:00

JoieTang: anyway, i don't meet boys
JoieTang: because i'm too busy eating
jowithani: i'm too busy sewing
jowithani: or dancing
jowithani: or doing other girly activities
JoieTang: well, at least you're active
JoieTang: you've got me beat
JoieTang: though if i ever do meet a dude
JoieTang: i will have one powerful set of jowels
jowithani: HA

form and function

2006-10-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

recently, i have become a fan of formalism. formalism, loosely defined, is a method of criticism that advocates for intratextual analysis as opposed to intertextual conversation. it's criticized because it is considered ahistorical, not socially or culturally conscious, etc. be that as it may, for me there is still something about looking closely at an individual text -- something to a well-placed line break and the resultant questions of why. why did the author choose to break the line there? what was the desired effect? did the author succeed?
i suppose these days, i wonder a great deal about form. what form is most appropriate for this apology; what method should i use to convey gratitude? how do i express sadness without self-pity? once upon a time, i'm sure i would have considered such formulations to be manipulative. but as i grow older, i find them to be exactly the opposite.

off record

2006-10-15T22:46:00.000-07:00

i don't remember when it was, but i was walking to school one morning and looked to my left. on the sidewalk was a homeless woman in a sleeping bag. she was propped up on her stomach and leaning on her right elbow, because her left hand was darting in and out of a casserole. as she ate, she half-covered the dish with a newspaper, as if to house it from the drizzle, or maybe she had been hiding it. i don't know. how could i possibly understand the function of a wet newspaper draped over a casserole being eaten by hand while lying on a sidewalk on a gray october day?
but i will hazard that, on some days, i feel as though i understand. on those days i feel that i could fall out of love with life, lie down and never get back up. and if that happened, then i would be that woman on the sidewalk. it would be so easy.

theoretically speaking

2006-10-02T19:50:00.000-07:00

today i ate 4 slices of pizza, a large green salad, 2 apples, 12 oz. of yogurt, 3 pita pockets filled with tuna salad, a hunk of leftover pork chop, a bag of wasabi soynuts, 1 grapefruit, a bowl of kimchi fried rice, a bowl of pork and tofu soup, and 20 double chocolate maltballs.
i'm writing my first theory paper.

just realizing

2006-09-30T22:30:00.000-07:00

that sometimes you live out the best parts of a B movie. on thursday night, some of the folklore crew and i ventured forth in search of salsa dancing. we reached our club, but it was closed. so there we were -- standing outside in high heels and discussing what to do next when suddenly, without warning, a black car with tinted windows pulled up to our corner. the window rolled down and a man leaned out and asked, "are you guys looking for salsa dancing?"
why yes, how fortuitous. the only way to improve this script would have been to have him ride up on a horse, wiith a cape and swinging a sword. but i suppose a black car will do. it did have tinted windows.

with my sisters, it always starts with food and ends with grey's

2006-09-30T14:07:00.000-07:00

it's good when people understand.

JoieTang: i eat all the time now
JoieTang: i ate a HUGE bran muffin the other day after i had already eaten a turkey burger with swiss cheese on it
medolie: so
medolie: big deal
medolie: i had some cheesecake and cookie with h- yesterday over grey's anatomy
medolie: where i continually hit him and said
medolie: "you can't just ask for her back after you broke her heart!"
JoieTang: i KNOW! that was so WRONG!
medolie: i was like, "don't believe him! he can't just have you back that easily! and you slept with him when he was still married! uncool!"
medolie: but i still love patrick dempsey
medolie: he makes my heart queasy
JoieTang: i can download episodes off of abc for free, i've discovered. and i watched the new one this morning at 1.
JoieTang: i love the other dude
JoieTang: i love him
JoieTang: i love chris o'donnell all grown up and hairy
JoieTang: i love his character
JoieTang: and meredith IS annoying me
medolie: i saw that
medolie: but my internet has been too slow to string it
medolie: so i had to go to h-'s where he has tivo
medolie: b/c i worked until 10 on grey's anatomy day- i was angry
medolie: she is annoying me too
JoieTang: so sorry
medolie: mainly b/c
medolie: she didn't DO anything to deserve the attention of two guys
medolie: one who is OH SO HOT
medolie: and the other who is too kind
JoieTang: like, HOW is she ALLOWED to have two...EXACTLY!!!
JoieTang: she's not that amazing, is she?
JoieTang: and her lines have no depth
JoieTang: she's so glib
medolie: no, not lately
JoieTang: and unfeeling
medolie: i didn't mind her before
medolie: she was just flawed yet charming
medolie: well not charming
medolie: but you could see that she WOULD have friends
medolie: but now she's just like
medolie: "who do i choose?"
medolie: and finn....
medolie: she hasn't doen anything for him to want her so badly w/o walking away in an angry puff
JoieTang: i know! i know!
medolie: derek, they actually were apparently in love
medolie: so i understand the turmoil there
JoieTang: i know!
JoieTang: like finn should be like
medolie: the "you're not good for me, but i want you" thing
JoieTang: screw you
medolie: yeah, exactly
JoieTang: you would take cheating loser-boy over ME
JoieTang: ME?
JoieTang: the beautiful sweet hot man who understands that you're all "dark and twisty" and all of that business, who makes you dinner and brings your roommate food. why do you not get that i'm wonderful? obviously you love the other dude or else you'd pick me in a heartbeat because i am obviously so much better for you!
medolie: exactly

anecdotal

2006-09-30T10:53:00.000-07:00

so there i was, coming home from school, just after dark. i turned onto my street and there is this dude with his back towards the sidewalk, looking into the passenger seat of his car. i think nothing of this. but as i walk closer, i can hear the distinct sound of pee hitting concrete. he wasn't looking for something, he was using the door of his car as a stall. to give him privacy, i avert my eyes and keep walking, but as i pass him, he looks over his right shoulder, and calls out, "hey, sorry!" then he waved with his free hand. it was brilliant.

the truth will _______.

2006-09-27T22:47:00.000-07:00

today i tell my classmate m- that being in a new place is overstimulating, so much so that i cannot quiet myself enough to focus on our reading, and, "this is infuriating because didn't i come to graduate school to absorb material?" and she says yes, this is so and that i should breathe, not unkindly, only matter-of-factly.
sometimes we lie to ourselves.
i was lying. only i'm not sure what the truth is, exactly. inexactly, there's something in my head about looking for love. the word is love, but i don't know what it means, to look for love, why there's this looking, or how it relates -- the reading and the love. but, i can't read, can't even breathe, and it is connected, somehow, to love.
i remember being on a boat in china and writing in my journal that all stories are about love, even when they're not. maybe i was right.

currently i spend more time writing to myself on this screen than i do reading, which is unfortunate, which is wasteful (of time and money), but it is what i do. to feel real.

i hope

2006-09-27T19:37:00.000-07:00

my fortune cookie fortune of the day says, "good things are being said about you."

introspectively speaking

2006-09-26T09:26:00.000-07:00

there's a line playing in my head from the movie, "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" in the manner of a song that just repeats and repeats. it's, "i'm not a concept. i'm just a girl looking for her own peace of mind." and then tangerine, the character, goes on to tell her male counterpart that she's not going to save him. and he replies, "ok," before proceeding to believe that she will.
i wake up these days with half-formed thoughts in my head and then approach this site as a place to talk, to myself, until meaning is wrested from the haze of the morning, or alternately, sometimes i invent a character to whom i target my language. either route, it's like writing a letter into the dark, which is actually another line, this time paraphrased, from Tennessee Williams in the foreword of the first play i ever read ("Cat on a Hot Tin Roof") in high school, bought from Copperfield Used Books in Spring, TX, next to the TCBY on Louetta for $1.50. he claimed that he wrote every play as a letter to a stranger whom he regarded as an intimate friend. and again, there was something about speaking into the dark.
it's the dark that catches me today; it's the idea of not being a concept; that catches me this morning. i'm sitting in my underwear, cross-legged on my twin bed with my laptop propped on my feet.
perhaps it is this. there have been many who talk to me through the night but never ask me to lunch the next day or introduce me to their friends or invite me to a show or teach me to throw a frisbee. and my guess is that, to them, i'm a concept, a gesture in the dark, something interesting and romantic existing in a safe vacuum into which they can dip and be saved and depart into their newly reconstituted lives while i stay here, because i only have this one reality.
i am the intimate stranger in the dark.

I gave in to the list thing.

2006-09-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

Three jobs I have had in my life:
1. Subway Sandwich Artist
2. Riverboat Hostess and Tour Guide
4. High School English/ESL teacher

Three places you have lived:
1. Houston, TX
2. Provo, UT
3. Berkeley, CA

Three other places you have been:
1. China (Nanjing, Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, Xian, HuangShan, Yangtze River, Wuhan, Chongqing, JiuZhaiGou, Lijiang, TaiShan, HuTiaoXia, Guilin, Kunming)
2. Taipei, Taiwan and Hong Kong
3. New York City, New York

Three places you would rather be right now:
1. in Houston
2. in Spain, with my sisters
3. Outside

happy friday

2006-09-22T08:54:00.000-07:00

JoieTang: do you think you might stick with it?
Raging Aardvark: teaching?
JoieTang: yeah
Raging Aardvark: i've always had a love for teaching. i've always had strong feelings about education. i'll want to keep educating and maybe mentoring in some capacity or another. but I don't think i can, financially.
Raging Aardvark: the price of being alive is far too high.
JoieTang: i've expressed that before, only my catch phrase is "life is expensive."
Raging Aardvark: death is cheap as dirt.
JoieTang: no, dirt is pretty expensive these days
JoieTang: they sell coffins at costco

houston

2006-09-21T22:13:00.000-07:00

i didn't know i loved houston this much.
i'm wearing a t-shirt that says, "cowgirls have it, cowboys want it," bought at a salvation army this past summer, the day i began to marginally intuit that i might someday need, well, a shirt like this. i've never owned a pair of boots or a cowboy hat. i've never even said the word "y'all."
but now suddenly "y'all" gives me pause. if i so much as hear it in passing, i actually stop walking and look for the speaker. this past week, in fact, my office was interviewing for internships and as this one applicant turned to go, he said the words. he said, "ok, bye y'all."
i almost jumped out of my chair, "did you say y'all?"
my boss started laughing, "you really like that, don't you?"
and while she's saying this, the kid is looking at me, sort of grinning, his bag hovering between his shoulder and the floor, and i don't know how to explain. so i say, "i'm homesick."
and i am.
everyone loves the bay area/wants to move to the bay area. i'm the only one who wants my concrete-bound mall/multi-plex/sauna-like hybrid of an ugly, grey city that spills off into a forever never never land of suburb-suburb-stripcenter repeat repeat ad nauseum.
the first day i moved here, an admin, ned, helped me register for payroll. he made small talk as i filled out the paperwork. "so you're from houston?"
"mm-hmm" i said.
"how is it?" he asked.
"in what way?" i asked back.
he looked a little suprised, not that i blame him, "well, in that 'how is it' way..."
"i love houston," i said without looking up from my forms, "it's ugly and it's hot and i love it."
"oh...why?"
i looked up, "i think it's because i like things that exist below the surface," and then went back to filling in blanks. ned and i get along famously, by the way, and i wasn't trying to be dramatic. i was surprised by what came out of my mouth, am still surprised, by how a place becomes home, and by how much i wish i was back.
but i can't go back, which brings me back to the beginning wherein i'm wearing a shirt that says "cowgirls have it, cowboys want it" and eating a huge bowl of fried rice while watching grey's anatomy. the sheer quantity of fried rice is making me sick, as is the derek character on grey's (the man should be shot).
izzie, another one of the characters, spent the entire episode lying on the bathroom floor and asking, "how did i get here?" and i admit to echoing that wonder. now granted, in the spirit of tv drama, she's on the floor because her fiance of one day unexpectedly died, and i'm merely lying on a single bed in berkeley with a tub of fried rice in my stomach, but nonetheless -- how did i get here? and if i too feel, despite my life's definitive lack of obvious drama, unable to move backwards or forwards and that everything is in slow motion, when does it get better/how do i make it better? it will get better.
the end.

summary

2006-09-18T10:16:00.000-07:00

when i'm not eating falafel, my diet consists pretty much exclusively of chocolate-covered everything.

flying falafel fridays

2006-09-17T14:36:00.000-07:00

it's not just alliteration. on friday there really is a campus booth with a sign that says "the flying falafel...volunteers eat free".
berkeley has more falafel per square foot of sidewalk than any other place i have ever encountered. i'm not complaining. i love the falafel. otherwise i wouldn't know that fred's deli has a footlong falafel sandwich for $3.99; that sunshine deli sells avocado falafel pita, super falafel pita, and a falafel plate with hummus and a choice of sides; or that the bear's lair on campus has a falafel lunchbox to go.
this falafel phenomenon (and that was for the love alliteration) amuses me, however, because in an age where the french fry is considered a demonic creation of the fast food industry, how a deep-fried ball of chickpeas can masquerade so effectively as a healthy, vegetarian option is...well.
whatever. chickpeas over potatoes and down with mcdonald's. because that's the berkeley way.

supposedly so open-minded

2006-09-09T20:35:00.000-07:00

in berkeley, people are ok with naked. my new friend g- told me that one day, to prove that "chemistry grad students aren't pussies," he stripped off all his clothes and paraded himself down the street. the cops drove by, honked, and said, "put on your clothes, asshole," and then drove off. so apparently, this sort of behavior, if not exactly condoned, is at least expected. after all, it's berkeley.
however, if you say, "oh, i don't drink," all sorts of questions arise.
it's funny. all this anti-establishment pride, and no one notices that all they've done is normalize their counter-culture. we accept all kinds, espouses berkeley. subtext: so long as your kind is our kind.
the only lesson that i derive from this is that instead of saying, "i don't drink," i should just say, "oh, i've had enough." i already drive like i'm drunk anyway.

they look the same, but

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

i am so confused when a student-type walks up and asks questions about a project. this week, the anthro 160 undergrads have been wandering into the folklore archives in droves and saying things such as, "so, i was thinking about the project and was wondering..." at which point, my mind tends to shut off, because i'm shocked. there are students who think about their projects. they ask for help when they're confused. they decide to...wait. right, i'm at berkeley. they got into berkeley, so barring the possibility that someone else filled in their applications, these are the 18-year-olds who advocate for their own education.
my high school students were the ones who turned in their homework, maybe sometimes, if i bothered to literally chase them down the hallway, possibly while throwing things at them and yelling, "WHERE is your HOMEWORK? Do you UNDERSTAND what HAPPENS if you don't turn in THIS ASSIGNMENT?"
how does one create a culture of success? i'm still asking this question.

Part I

2006-09-08T23:05:00.000-07:00

Since coming to Berkeley, a few things have happened.
1. I discovered a vegetarian co-op that holds naked pizza Fridays. 2. While walking, I saw a Michael Landon look-alike. He had the hair and everything. 3. I saw my neighbor, completely naked. Now her window is covered with a tie-dyed scarf. 4. I saw a fruit basket hanging from a random tree in People’s Park. A man walked by and checked it for fruit. 5. When I was walking down Shattuck, a person approached me with, “Good evening, would you like a free psychic consultation?” I politely declined. 6. I’ve seen a field full of goats next to the Schraffenberger Chocolate Factory. People stopped to stare. I took pictures. This was in the middle of a residential area, and the goats were eating weeds and aluminum cans next to crumbling, graffitti-covered walls. 7. While I was taking pictures of goats, a man walked up and picked me some wild fennel. It was tasty. 8. My first night here, I went to a beach bonfire and met a Stanford Economics PhD with a Nalgene bottle full of whiskey. He wanted to talk about Sumerian mythology. 9. Also on my first day, I was throwing a frisbee on-campus. I couldn’t backhand the frisbee and was asking, “How do you do this?” As if prompted, a stranger walked up, took the disc out of my hand, and threw it a perfect arc to my friend. “Like this," he said. 10. The day I moved in, another neighbor, whose name I do not know, offered me a plant. 11. I’ve seen the iconic “Happy-Happy-Happy Guy” of UC Berkeley. He's a bald Taiwanese man with a bright red nose who stands on a box at Sather Gate wearing a sign that says, “Please forgive me for being a prophet of God”. But all he says is, “Happy Happy Happy....” 12. At Sather Gate, student groups pass out fliers. Last week, there were two students protesting the student fliers. They walked up and down the commons area with cardboard signs, yelling, “If you don’t take ‘em, they won’t make ‘em!”

talking the simple talk

2006-08-14T19:01:00.000-07:00

Jowithani: when is the big move?
JoieTang: saturday morning
Jowithani: yay!
JoieTang: are we shipping my life across the country?
JoieTang: yes
JoieTang: do we have 13 boxes, 2 suitcases, a carry-on, and a swath of framed paintings?
JoieTang: yes

forget the superbowl

2006-08-03T06:36:00.000-07:00

i found this on the Howstuffworks website. isn't it beautiful?

Searching for Sport
Search engines have become such an integral part of our lives that at least one organized game has evolved around this tool. In Googlewhacking, you type two words into the Google search engine in the hopes of receiving exactly one result -- a single Web page on which both of those words appear. This is a pure whack.
It's quite a difficult task -- you need to choose two completely unrelated words or else you'll get a whole lot more than one result, but with many completely unrelated words you get zero results.

If you achieve a pure whack, you can submit it to www.googlewhack.com, where it is posted in The Whack Stack (along with your name, or whatever you want to call yourself) for all to see. One pure whack currently in The Whack Stack is "ambidextrous scallywags."

she stammers

2006-08-01T06:58:00.000-07:00

last night, someone asked me if i "believed more in the mission of teach for america this year than i did my first year." there is so much subtext to this question. example: did your first year fuck you up to the point of no return? if your second year was better than your first year, was it actually inspiring, or just better? is it possible that your second year was as bad as your first year/oh please let it not be so (dramatic flourish, etc.) therefore, my very coherent reply was something along the lines of, "um...i think...i think that i think..." the truth is that i don't even marginally comprehend the past two years, but if asked again"do you believe," i think i would just say, "yes."

i worked at lee high school for two years and feel as though i did nothing. however, i did see something, or some things, which things were my students -- who are not things at all, after all, but people. so who am i to say that if i was not personally able to fashion some dramatic change within them that no one can, or that they cannot for themselves? to say otherwise means that i have allowed myself to assume their futures along the lines of statistical reality, and as a teacher, i do not believe you have that luxury. it was my job to see potential. if i did my job, my students, while they will eventually learn that their work was too basic to be college prepratory (at least, for now) will not have left my classroom thinking that they are fuck-ups, so long as i do my job, did my job, sorry. it was my job to believe.

kid logic

2006-07-24T06:25:00.000-07:00

mothers should never ask their children to transfer information. it's like that game of telephone, but worse. there is no way that children are going to consciously serve on the side of establishment. it's playground law. don't rat on your friends, and don't be the teacher's pet.

for example, a call at midnight.
"joy, your brother is still not home. tell him to come home."
"why don't you to tell him to come home?"
"just...call him!"
"ok, i'll call him."
"tell him he cannot do this to me! tell him that he is wrong!"
"i'm calling him."
(dialing)
"dude...where are you?"
(brother provides location)
"ok, mom wants you to go home."
"do you think i should go home?"
"actually, i think you should stay out and make the woman suffer. but that's probably the wrong answer."

so the kid went home. but, do you see what i mean?

the things we do

2006-07-24T05:57:00.000-07:00

i told my mother i wasn't feeling well, so she made an appointment for me. with an "electrode machine."
"mom, why am i doing this?"
"because the machine will test your organs."
"my organs?"
"yes, your organs."
"ok...hold on. why are we testing my organs?"
"because then you will know what organ is the problem!"
"um..." i wanted to know why my organs were a problem in the first place but lacked the stamina. "...how much is this costing me?"
"it is free!"
free didn't make it any better. "mom, i have to go."
"ok...ok...but thursday?"
i've been scheduled for a free electrode test that will irrevocably determine the health of my various organs. right. why is it free? i'm envisioning electrodes fashioned from chewing gum... but most of all, why can't the woman just let me die in peace?

journal entry

2006-07-20T07:51:00.000-07:00

Supposedly, you have become a good writer when your pain actually represents the pain of the entire world and when the masses can cluster around your book/essay/whatever and emit collective groans of, "Ohhhhhhhh, I know exactly how that feels...." while you, the writer, lean back with your foot against your stove ( i.e. your book) and think, "Well, my work here is done." Oh Art, Art and her sister Catharsis.

I don't do Art so much. But I'd still like to write.

wife of frankenstein

2006-07-19T17:29:00.000-07:00

my face is frozen because i just had two cavities filled, and this morning i woke up in my own bed and wondered how i got there.
i miss my left nostril. consider it a metaphor.

personal response

2006-07-16T08:04:00.000-07:00

it's been a week since zidane's head-butting incident, and everything that wanted to be said about how zidane's actions were understandable, if not excusable, has already been said.

the only thing left for me to muse upon is something tangential. to me, it is fascinating to think that an entire history of social, political, and individual struggle can be enacted in a single physical gesture. i think of this as a text that will be unpacked for years, though it was "just" a soccer game. it says something to me about the impotence of our words when, in my opinion, our most recent "great" statement on racism is zidane's head making contact with his opponent's chest, during a game of soccer.

from an english III student

2006-07-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

Dear Ms Tang,

First of all I want to know how are you? How is this summer? I hope that you are enjoying this summer.... Well, Ms I only want to tell you that I miss you, and that you are a great teacher and it was a pleasure having you as my English teacher. Well, it was really nice knowing you!!! I wish you all the luck in the world and I hope all your dreams come TRUE!!!! So, bye and take care Ms. Good luck with everything in CA.

Your student who will always remember you

natural klepto

2006-06-26T14:46:00.000-07:00

i steal stuff. alright, not really. but if i go to whole foods or some other choose-where-to-sit kind of eating establishment, i choose my seat based on what was left on the table. for example, did someone leave a magazine? a newspaper? ok, then that's where i go.
today it was the sports section of the houston chronicle. england beat ecuador, 1-0. yesterday, it was the comics. cathy had to buy a pumice stone and garfield is still fat.

may 24, 2006: my indirect way of saying

2006-06-26T14:34:00.000-07:00

as of tomorrow, it will have been two years. teach for america is done. and i don't know what to say. it's momentous. it's also just another day at school, which will pass in that invisible, nothing-out-of-the-ordinary way in which days at school always pass. still, it seems like something should happen. a thunderstorm should rage in my classroom. an aurora borealis should occur. but it won't. i'd say that odds are tomorrow, my last day at Lee High School, will be pretty normal. in fact, i may even leave early.

oh well.

when there is no formal closing ceremony, one generally imposes some personal ritual. however, my mind is a blank. how to mark the passing? i could have at least written a few thank you notes.

again, oh well.

but not "oh well." tomorrow is not a shrug my shoulders and then leave sort of day. i mean, let's be honest -- i've left school at a run almost every single day for two years. but, i also always knew i would be back. and tomorrow is obviously different. there is no going back. so tomorrow, while i'm fairly certain that i'll still leave at a run, it will not be without looking back.