zoe-truong

[zoe-truong]

The Best and the Worst

It makes me sad that this is the last best and worst blog for the year, but I should give a best and worst for this year of world literature. For my best, I have felt compassionate. Doing these weekly blogs was the most therapeutic and touching thing for me about this class, and it makes me sad I won’t have another experience like it. I won’t be able to sit, surrounded by 15 other people, just talking about how my week has been. I can’t easily reveal about how vulnerable I’ve been or how wonderful the people in my life are. And the people in my world lit class have been some really wonderful people. So for the worst for the year I felt challenged, which isn’t necessarily a bad, but I can’t say anything bad about this class besides the challenges Bump has provided for me. My ideologies and knowledge has been put to the hardest test, and I escaped almost unscathed. I can’t imagine what my life would be like if I didn’t win the lottery (literally) to be in this World Literature class. Thank you Professor Bump and everyone in my class for listening to the best and worst parts of my week, and thank you for opening up yourselves to me as well. And thank you for giving me an amazing first year of college. It is and probably will be the most memorable class I will have ever taken. 

This past week my emotions have ranged from shock, anger, and remorse to hopefulness, appreciation, and connectedness.

It’s been a hard week for the University of Texas. In fact, hard can’t even properly characterize what every student, every person on this campus feels right now. You don’t expect for something so horrific, senseless, and vile to strike our students, so when it does, shock is the only reasonable sentiment. When I got those messages from my cohort in one of the group messages, I was a little reluctant to believe it. A stabbing? There’s no way. But as more messages flooded in, I knew the situation was real. I was just sitting at my desk, but I could feel the wave of tingles hit my body. I’m not sure if it was fear or sadness. Probably both. But when I saw the location of the event, I knew that I had to get the word out to my club. So many of my closest friends lived down in that area, so to imagine them being near the scene of the crime scared me beyond belief. Thankfully, none of them witnessed the event nor were involved with it. However, as we know, four students were involved. One died due to his injuries: Harrison Brown. I can’t even sum up the remorse I feel for this young man’s family. He was almost home from his first year of college. And he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes, I feel like it’s wrong to thank whatever God you believe in that He “told you” to not be there. What does that say about Harrison? Are you inadvertently saying that God told him to be there? This is the time to be grateful for your life yes, but remember that someone had the unfortunate luck to be killed in this situation. It’s so harsh to believe that things happen for a reason when this boy died. Anyways, as the hours passed and more information was swirling around the social media sphere, I started to get angry. How can people already try putting a reason to the attack when we don’t even know all the details of who was involved and how they are. People nowadays are so quick to extrapolate and spread this misinformation without giving the people that were hurt the time of day they more than deserve. The general respect for human life is too often overrode by speculation. And the absolute worst part of it all is when people are using this event to mock the students of our University to push for their agendas. I can’t even tell you how many people’s first responses --mind this is about 45 minutes after the attack happened-- were “maybe if open carry was legal this wouldn’t happen” or “why didn’t they use their dildos to protect them?” It sickens me to no end. Some people’s children were heavily injured and one family’s child just died. Where, where is the respect for human life? Maybe weeks from now we can think about the implications of this event, but I can’t even begin to describe how frustrated I am that people just don’t care. They don’t care that some children were hurt. No, they only carry that a majority of the students at UT do not align with their political values so in essence everyone student at this university deserves this tragedy. They don’t care to keep their mouths quiet and they hands to themselves. They just want to be the first to point out something and make the students at the university inadvertently take blame for this tragedy. I started a conversation on Twitter, accusing one person of doing this very thing, and the number of hateful replies from complete strangers I got back was horrid. People were so quick to label me liberal and say senseless things like “it’s only okay to use an event of disaster for political gain if you’re a liberal. If you’re conservative, it’s immoral and hateful,” or “Been trying to but dumb liberals refuse to understand the danger our schools cities states country in.” Let it sink in that the latter reply was to my accusation that someone had no respect for human life. This means that this person is saying they can’t even care to respect human life because “liberals refuse to understand the danger.” I am beyond appalled that a person’s political viewpoints can lead them to say something so immoral. I just hope for the day where people stopped being so party-lined and recognize what it means to be human. Recognize that these aren’t just stories. They are real life tragedies and real people were involved. Who cares what party a school, group, or individual identifies as? Can’t we just go back to focusing on what we care about and not being so quick to dismiss something just because we think we need to stay to these strict party lines? Fuck the two-party system. I want there to be independently thinking citizens again. I just want us to be humans again. Is that so much to ask for?

I’m not going to elaborate so much on the good parts of this week. It hasn’t been that great. The only things I can say that I am filled with hopefulness that the university can take genuine actions to making our campus safer and listening to the students qualms. We deserve that at the least. I also have felt an incredible amount of appreciation for my friends and family across the country who have reached out to me to see if I was safe and sound. Getting texts from friends who I haven’t heard from in months was something I couldn’t be more thankful for. And finally, as a result of this appreciation I have felt a deep sense of connectedness with students on my campus. We all came out to remember Harrison’s beautiful life last night in front of the tower. I saw some familiar faces, but most importantly I saw thousands of unfamiliar faces. The amount of people who didn’t know Harrison but came out to honor him was something that I love about my university. We can all find a way to comfort each other in the face of tragedy, and this is why I am proud to be a Longhorn. 

#blog #bestandworst

[zoe-truong]

Woman Warrior 3

Wow, after two semesters of weekly blogs, it’s finally coming to an end. The last official blog for the readings. This is pretty sad. It’s even sadder that this blog probably won’t even be eloquent or profound. In spite of that, I am thankful for having to write two blogs every week. It was challenging (read: exhausting), but it was also a necessary evil to get me used to focusing on the things I read and synthesizing significant lessons out of it to apply to my own life. The quality of my writing probably didn’t improve over the course of these blogs, but I’d like to think the quality of my analysis did, even if it doesn’t show. So, here’s to the last weekly World Literature blog I’ll ever have to write. Cheers~ 

Traditions, traditions, traditions. Lots of strange traditions in The Woman Warrior. Though we can’t forget that every nation, every culture is full of their own strange customs. They are what define our society and connect us with people down our bloodline generations ago. Without some semblance of a tradition then our civilization is just a habitat of constantly changing people with nothing that lets them learn or relate to things of the past. Not every tradition or custom is necessarily good, as there are some that allow for “the baby whose mother waited with scissors or knife in hand for it to cry--and then, when its mouth was wide open like a baby bird’s, cut.” (164) And that is a pretty terrifying thing, because it can easily be justified by countering that it was cut so that they “would not be tongue-tied,” (164). Maxine didn’t even remember when her mother did it. She questioned and questioned, wanting to understand how she felt when it happened and pry through her mother’s brains to find the proper reasoning. This can be the dark side of customs too. While what Maxine’s mother did was not something characteristic of the Chinese, it is still easy to manipulate children to doing what you want. Grandparents can make the young girls feel insignificant for being born girls, or parents can lead their kids to follow certain roles in life because “that is the way the Chinese do it.” (171) It may not be ethical, or may be oppressive, but it’s sound justification for people who haven’t lived a life that shows otherwise. 

Another thing from this novel that I can relate to is the idea that young Asian girls are quiet. It’s probably a stereotype and I’m probably not helping it, because as far as I can remember I’ve been soft-spoken. I’d most likely be among the rest of the Chinese girls (though I’m Vietnamese), “when [the] second grade class did a play....left...behind in the classroom.” (167) I’m not sure what it is that makes us so soft-spoken. Maybe we’re naturally like that, or maybe we’ve been taught to be that way. As you know many Asian cultures can be oppressive towards women, so maybe the general idea was that women should be submissive, staying quiet when they could. Now, this definitely doesn’t apply anymore to society today, because I definitely know some aunts of mind who have that really grating Vietnamese accent that emphasizes the various inflections in our language. This brashness always eluded me though, while “I enjoyed the silence.” (166) It gives me peace of mind when life gets hectic. It certainly depends on a person’s personality, but with my introverted, focused self, this soft-spokenness always fit me. It always helps to work on it though. 

People generally don’t like those who are quiet. It makes it hard to communicate or understand what they’re saying. We always here, “What? Speak up.” (170) It’s not like we don’t want to pull out that strong sound from our mouths, where we can “chant... voices rising and falling, loud and soft,” (167). No; the problem lies in the fact that we often lack the confidence. When you know that there are people out there, maybe in your class, who can speak clearly and easily, it makes you self-conscience of your own lack of eloquence. It’s not that I don’t know how to speak English--it’s my first (and only) language-- but it’s that there are definitely people out there who can speak it better. They can organize their thoughts, never having to worry about someone telling them to “ ‘Speak up,’ so I have to perform again, only weaker the second time.” (165). You feel constantly judged knowing that you’re working hard on being like the “emigrant villagers” who “are shouters, hollering face to face.” (171) Okay, maybe I don’t want to holler, but I want to have that confidence in speaking. It’s likely why reading the passage of Maxine trying to train the girl older than her to speak made me rather annoyed. Facing your problem head on to a girl similar to you can be daunting, but it should be easier. There is Maxine, a girl who faced troubled with speaking out loud, attempting to make the young girl speak. It should be so easy, and yet “she did not say a word.” (180) The way Maxine put it, it seemed so easy. Honestly, it should’ve been easy. But the young girl stayed silent, frightened by how bold Maxine was and unable to cry through her constant tears.

 It’s funny, because it seems like Maxine is just like her second grade teacher in this situation who was “lovely and Hawaiian,” and “should have understood about [them]” (167) but she ignored them for the play because they were so quiet. Maxine should have understood this silent girl for her inability to speak. Maybe it was more extreme than anything Maxine had to deal with, but she should still have sympathy, not telling her, “You’re disgusting. Look at you, snot streaming down your nose and won’t say a word to stop it. You’re such a nothing.” (178) I guess when you see for yourself how debilitating this fear of speaking can be, you become angry with it. This young girl has a stronger fear than Maxine, so Maxine can scrutinize it like an outsider, being angry at the existence of such a fear and hoping to destroy it in hopes that she can get over it herself. Besides, Maxine already expected that her mother wanted to “stop [her] from talking,” and “tried to cut off [her] tongue.” (202) So it makes sense that Maxine would want to extinguish this fear of talking, because she might have never been able to talk. 

#blog #the woman warrior

[zoe-truong]

Week Fourteen

This past week at my worst I felt overworked, despondent, and spiteful and at my best elated, cherished, and grateful.

This last week I was in the heavy stages of preparing for my club’s Spring Banquet. Combine lots of duties with being sick and you get my week. It’s hard reconciling lots of work with illness, because I have to accomplish a lot of things without exacerbating my sickness. Thanks to this, I’ve felt extremely overworked from trying to balance all of my responsibilities. I tried to be efficient and get enough sleep, though I’m not sure if I succeeded because I’m still sick. Besides that, I’ve felt really despondent lately because of an issue that came up with my best friend. Not saying too much, but in the end I was wrong. About everything. So it kind of left me aloof with everything. I lost my sense of self-identity and self-respect because I thought I knew better when I didn’t. Sure, people make mistakes, but this was conscious ignorance. Probably one of the things I despise the most. Maybe I didn’t know the whole picture, but I didn’t allow myself room to accept that there might be more. That is pretty unacceptable. I’ve spent this entire class, for the past two semesters, expanding my circle of consciousness. I’ve felt disgust for violent ideologies and even changed my diet in many ways because of it. Yet for the easiest of tasks, to someone that is important for me, I stepped back. Well, I’m not sure if it can be considered a step back. If my journey to being an open-minded, empathetic person was up a spiraling staircase, then I tripped on my way up, rolled about 5 floors down, and broke about half of the bones in my body. Maybe broke my spirit too. I’m not sure yet. I’m still spiteful of it all and don’t know why my friend still wants to be friends with me. I had toxic thoughts of his class, which indirectly is me being toxic to him. I don’t deserve to be at his class’s graduation for being so consciously horrible. My friend is missing the trees for the forest thinking that a mistake like this could be reasonably overlooked. If he thinks the mistake doesn’t represent a seemingly bigger picture then he’s just as misguided as I am. I’ll get it through him eventually.

On a lighter note, I felt elated this past week because this Sunday was the banquet. Finally. It went very smoothly. Lots of people came out, people I’ve actually never even seen before, to celebrate everything YAD. The food was so delicious and getting to be voted as Best Dressed for this year’s YAD and being the financial director for the 2017-2018 school year left me feeling cherished. It was nice getting to be with close friends, reminiscing what a great school year we had. I couldn’t be more grateful to have found a community in this ginormous school with these wonderful people.

#blog #bestandworst

[zoe-truong]

Woman Warrior 2

Today I am not a woman warrior bc I am v sick, smol, and weak. Plz don’t fight me I would die.

“That’s your father’s family. My mother and father died very young. My youngest sister was an orphan at ten. Our parents were not even fifty.”(102)

Well damn this actually hit really close to him. My mother’s parents died when she was 20---killed in a car crash by a drunk driver. My mother was the middle sister, while her youngest sister was only 13. When you’re younger you don’t really realize the toll losing parents at a young age does for someone. I’ve always thought, well I guess I only have one pair of grandparents. But over time, and in reading this passage, a person has to take on being an adult so suddenly. Maybe they didn’t get the chance to learn about how their parents worked their ways around as adults, so they were left alone in the world figuring it out for themselves. 

To Maxine, it may have “only been a year since [she] visited,” (101). However, when you’ve lost your own parents at an early age, one becomes prone to being that much more attentive to their own children. What if in that year they too passed away early? Did they tell them everything they need to hear? Did they get the chance to truly let them know how much they loved them? Life happens very quickly and a year can completely change the way a person sees the world. So it’s important to realize that for orphans, sometimes when the whole family is “all home...there are twenty or thirty people in [the] house. Then [they’re] happy.” (107) It means they have lived long enough to see their own children grow up. A luxury their own parents could not afford. Even as a ghost, nothing is better than being in the present. 

“He’s living in Los Angeles with his second wife, and they have three children. Claim your rights.” (125)

It’s mind-boggling to me that people who leave to another country find it so easy to show so much disregard for their significant others. You are in a committed relationship. This is just another aspect of the extremely strong patriarchy found in China. Although the man moved to America, he still exposes this ingrained belief that women are inherently inferior. Moon Orchid’s husband  still makes the effort to send money as though he cares, but in reality he has another family. It’s like his wife is a pet that he “loves” and wants to make sure is healthy, but will not give her the respect she deserves. However, the good thing about leaving an environment that encourages that is the children can more easily escape this restricted life as “all her children made up their minds to major in science or mathematics.” (160)  Maybe the father will be irate, expecting his daughters to follow his orders like his sisters followed his parents’ orders. But all it takes is a space that allows freedom. A space that encourages young girls to be successful, to not let others control how they want to live their life. Sometimes traditions are nice things to keep in mind, but if they keep a person from living their life how they want to maybe we should reconsider it. 

“They were capable children; they could do servants’ work. But they were not modest.” (134)

Mmmmmmm I’m getting those childhood flashbacks. The horror. So there seems to be this significant dichotomy between life in America and life in China addressed in these books. It must be a part of the “American dream” because to Maxine’s mother, “human beings don’t work like this in China.”(105) This is actually interesting to me, because my parents always complain about my brothers and I for not working as hard as they did when they were in Viet Nam. Granted this is at a time when technology didn’t exist at the level it does not, however the sentiments are vastly different. It’s not that my brothers and I weren’t capable --we were-- but we lacked the sense of urgency they dealt with. They had to take care of themselves when they were younger, but we had the privilege of living in a financially stable household. In hindsight, it makes me sad that I’m similar to these nieces and nephews. Expecting words and praise like normal by doing the bare minimum. I

#blog #the woman warrior

[zoe-truong]

LBJ Library

I’ll be honest: I don’t know much about our US presidents at all. I know names and general ideas, but no successes, failures, or public perceptions. So, when we went to the LBJ Library, I was surprised.

I knew that LBJ served during the Viet Nam War, of which many Americans were not fond. Extrapolating from there it made sense that the US’s involvement in the war translated to disapproval of the President. Going through the exhibit, there were many instances to support this fact, but a lot of instances that were surprising to say the least.

Being President of the United States is difficult, especially after assuming responsibility following the assassination of the previous president. However, going through the exhibit showed that even in the hardest times, the strongest leaders can still accomplish incredible things. Lyndon B. Johnson was one of those people. Maybe for most people what burns in their memories of LBJ was the war, but for generations of people of color and disadvantaged communities, he was likely a hero. In my P4 I quoted Robert Lee’s book on leadership, where he denotes that “Some roles are more visibly “the leader” than others, but they can all contribute to the overall leadership effort.” (Lee-P4) This holds true across the spectrum of humanity. This fact is why we have multiple political parties, careers, and responsibilities. No one leader is alike, and how a person imagines a leader is subjective. Clearly, the ones who sing the tale that LBJ failed as a President are the ones who value America’s place as a world power through war. However, there are surely those who recognize the work that he did for civil rights was monumental. I went to the museum knowing that all of the information in there would surprise me, but nothing surprised me more than how hard pressed LBJ was to improve the lives of all Americans, even the ones that were constantly ostracized, beaten, and forgotten. 

Even after much of the outrage involving desegregation, there was obvious racial discrimination. In spite of this polarized view of African-Americans, LBJ made it his stretch goal where he “[hoped] it may be said, a hundred years from now, that by working together we helped to make out country more just, more just for all of its people.” (LBJ) It’s incredible to look at America today, where a constant influx of stories concerning brutality, discrimination, and violence make it seem impossible for any president to properly reconcile the racial divides. However, imagining living in an America 50 years ago where these issues were at so more heightened of a level where the racism was outspoken and commonplace, it makes LBJ’s accomplishments astronomically impressive. He couldn’t have done it without a solid foundation, and I think this is where connecting LBJ to my P4 is indispensable.

Right now, I’m in the middle of my education, trying to figure out where I want to be 10, 20 years into the future. It’s always easy to look at history and see how clear people’s futures are through their actions; however, if we stood in their shoes while they were living them, they'd have just as much doubt or confusion as us. Some people will have a strong desire or passion, and LBJ definitely had this. I always believed that nurture presided over nature, because the impact of an environment can do a lot to a person’s mind. Sure nature does play a role in whether or a not a person will persist in spite of this environment, but nurture gives them a reason to think certain ways. LBJ is certainly a product of nurture in his rural upbringing. “Growing up, he felt the sting of rural poverty”(LBJ Library biography) and as a result sought to educate the poor himself. He went to a Teacher’s college and became a teacher for disadvantaged youths, which had set him on a lifelong journey to writing this wrong. This is what makes LBJ incredible. He recognized how widespread poverty is and how capable he is of bringing others out of this trouble. He had the luck to escape this life, gain an education, and work towards a political career, but did not forget the steps in his past that affected him. 

Many people would work their way, ignoring the people who made their success possible and seeking only personal gain. LBJ remembered the hard times he, the children he taught, and many Americans went through. And when he became President, he made sure to give these people a voice through his Civil Rights Act of 1964, Social Security Act (creating Medicare and Medicaid) of 1965, and Voting Rights Act of 1965. This is the role that ethics plays in our lives. I stated that in P3 that the path to success will not be through a universal code of ethics, but instead through a universal understanding of ethical reasoning. There are many journeys a person can take to form this ethical reasoning. For LBJ, it was a childhood rooted in poverty and an early career dedicated to impoverished children. He learned compassion from the kids and decided it was his goal to eliminate this disparate America. I didn’t live this life, so my journey will be a starkly different one from LBJ’s. However, I can still take pointers from the things he did. This is the recognition of problems in society and finding the drive to fix it, in spite of my supposed career goals. And who knows, maybe my career goals are in fact the things I am passionate about? It certainly was for LBJ, as he was able to directly help all of America’s underrepresented through his presidency. For people like me, there are other ways to find this ethical reasoning. Whether it is through all of the potential volunteer work or classes I have, I can “[unweave] this network of connections by reading more, learning more, and challenging myself more.” (P3) It’s all about learning, and LBJ did that best. He was constantly learning, from his opponents, from his coworkers, from his life.

 The most important thing he learned was that racism was thriving in America and that as president of the United States, no one was more suited to help end it than him. I think it’s telling of LBJ’s legacy on the Civil Rights movement when three of the Little Rock Nine came together for a picture right on the steps of the LBJ library, only three years ago. They didn’t get together there because they had some had in Viet Nam. That’s not the legacy that was actually left by LBJ. The legacy LBJ left was ones that all Americans enjoy today. He left us a secure future. He removed discrimination from the voting polls, allowing every citizen to make an impact on our nation’s future without fear of racism. Lyndon B. Johnson may not have been the perfect president, but there is no doubt that he was a leader, in every aspect of the word. 

#blog #lbj

[zoe-truong]

Woman Warrior 1

Ugh this book is so spoopy sometimes.... :(

The Woman Warrior is a pretty interesting book. Sometimes it’s really creepy, sometimes it’s downright infuriating. But regardless of these things, it speaks a lot of truth about the faults of Asian traditionalism and sexism in general.

Most people’s preconceptions about Asians and Asian culture are simply that our parents are strict and we are expected to make good grades. Yes, that is true, but the sort of reasoning behind it is the real crux of typical Asian values. As a first generation Asian-American, I’ve been saved from a majority of the toxic tradition, but The Woman Warrior really exposes some of the more dangerous aspects. These are the blatant sexism where it is okay to think that “it is more profitable to raise geese than daughters” (43) and demeaning nature Asians will put on their own family and community. I don’t know a lot about my own ethnicity’s history, but I wouldn’t doubt decades ago many women would be treated like Maxine’s aunt was. It’s the harsh, warped thinking that many traditional Asians share. There is such a high priority placed on honor that they often forget about being human.

So, to address first the blatant sexism in the novel, I had difficulty keeping myself from keeping myself from throwing the book down when I read injustices done against women. I’ve had the privilege to grow up in an environment where women are almost equal --at least in comparison to the women of this time in China. However, knowing that many Asians still like to believe that traditions means sacrificing basic human rights is just insulting. Women are treated like animals, where the parents could “[give] their daughter away to her husband’s family” (8) all for the fact that the girls weren’t born with something between their legs.

It’s expected that the women simply obey the parents. Their futures are limited by society’s standards. Compare this to the men, who have the right to treat women as they like, living out their lives however they want. Sure there are certain standards that are put upon men, to uphold a certain masculinity to honor the household, but it’s just a fact that “no husband.. will say, “I could have been a drummer, but I had to think about the wife and kids. You know how it is.” (48) They let their significant others build their lives around them.  It was for this reason that Maxine had held such a grudge against her great-uncle. Even as a child, not understanding why this gender inequality existed, she stood “at [her] great-uncle’s funeral [secretly testing] out feeling glad that he was dead--the six-foot bearish masculinity of him.”(47)

It’s this maltreatment that sustains this tradition. When an entire family or village all treat women like they’re lesser beings, then they have no choice but to do what they’re allowed to do. This keeps them as “lesser-beings.” Sure it’s not impossible to escape this cruel world like Maxine’s father who was “the only brother who never went back to China,” (11)  but when you have no means to escape this world, waiting only on luck, then it’s not surprise that this toxic existence stays. Even when you do move, some traditions stay, as Maxine believes that “even now China wraps double binds around [her] feet.” (48) This reminds me a lot of the mind forged manacles we always talk about in World Lit. We are locked in by our ideologies, refusing to break out of them. I can think of a lot of ideologies that perpetuate in my own culture, where it’s wrong for women to make the effort in relationships.

 Apparently --according to my parents-- the men should always go over to the woman’s house, and women should never ever pursue men. To them it’s akin to being a gentleman, but sometimes to me it’s powerlessness. When I went to my boyfriend’s house, my parents were furious. When I didn’t try to play myself off as uncaring to other guys, my mother would scold me for being too easy. There was some sort of handicap put on me for being a girl. I didn’t have my own room until I was 14 or 15 as “not many women got to live out the daydream of women--to have a room, even a section of a room, that only gets messed up when she messes it up herself.” (61) The things I can do versus the things my brothers can do is staggeringly unfair. This is obviously a more subdued ideology than the ones where a woman being raped is equivalent to humiliation,  leaving the woman “to be forgotten as if [she] had never been born.” (5) However, it is telling of the fact that this general idea of sexism still exists in some forms today. Women with better opportunities have more freedom nowadays, but they are still held to certain standards. A woman be “intelligent, alert, pretty.” but you “can’t tell if she’s happy.” (59)

 It’s pretty hard trying to make sense of these standards. I think I wouldn’t mind some of the standards so much if the male’s expectations weren’t so much easier to deal with. If you’re the first born and a male, you basically have your life set. Every relative will prepare you for life and set you out on your way, where worrying about meeting your parent’s expectations is not so hard after all. It’s for that reason that many men have no problem upholding the restrictions placed on women, because they’ve had their own restrictions and “worked” through it. Sort of like how my eldest brother was always fawned over by my grandparents and given lots of nice new things, while my younger brother and I didn’t. My parents still held us to the same standards when we were around family members, and my eldest brother had the greatest ease talking to my relatives (he understood Vietnamese best too) while me and my middle brother couldn’t. I think that’s how he developed a sort of arrogance, all for the fact that he couldn’t see that the privilege he had being the eldest son. All the while my middle brother and I worked hard to combat the traditions that worked against us.

 And while we’re on the concept of working hard, it’s sad that many people believe that “The sweat of hard work is not to be displayed. It is much more graceful to appear favored by the gods.” (64) Apparently lots of Asians just don’t like to let it be known they work hard. I know people like that actually. I think it shows how much how vulnerable our culture is to judgment. It’s like you weren’t born intelligent so you have to do work to keep up. They don’t think perseverance is an admirable quality, because the worthy ones wouldn’t need to worry about these things. It’s so admirable how Maxine fights against these prejudices. There are still “the emigrant villagers,” who’d say that “Feeding girls is feeding cowbirds” (46) but she was nothing like how they expect girls to be. She wasn’t just someone who her parents “could have sold... mortgaged.. stoned.” (8)  No, she was someone who “did not plan ever to have a husband. [She] would show her mother and father and the nosey emigrant villagers that girls have no outward tendency.” (47) 

To see how Maxine battled these extremely strong expectations and stereotypes was empowering. I don’t think the expectations are as strong in Vietnamese culture, but nonetheless Maxine is an Asian and a woman. She doesn’t have to prove her strength like Fa Mu Lan and go into battle like a real warrior, but she can fight her own battles in her own way because she deserves the choice to. There is nothing wrong with straying from tradition when you can “visit the family” and “wrap your American successes around [yourself] like a private shawl; [You are] worthy of eating the food.” (52) If it works for you, regardless if you are a man or a woman, then you are worthy. The expectations shouldn’t be set to demean you or question your worth; they should be there to motivate you. 

#blog #the woman warrior

[zoe-truong]

Week Thirteen

Fun fact: Thirteen is my favorite number

So this past week my emotions ranged from stress, worry, and ambivalence to ambitious, hopeful, and ecstatic.

This last week has been pretty busy for me because I am on the committee for the Spring Banquet for my club Austin YAD. There’s only three people on the committee, so I’ve been rather stressed since we have lots of things to do and not a lot of time to do them. Also, I’m on the planning committee for another event, except this one is higher profile since it’s opened up to the public. Anyways, on some level I do feel worried that the Spring Banquet committee  won’t accomplish everything we need to have done in time, partly because one of the members of the committee will be gone Friday and Saturday for a funeral, so we have one less helper. I also feel quite a bit of ambivalence over my school performance in general, because some of my classes I am doing rather poorly in and it worries me because these are classes I definitely should not be struggling through. This is the cover photo I designed for the other committee I’m a part of.

For the good, I felt very ambitious this last week because I decided to run as Financial Director for Austin YAD. Elections stress me out and running as officer for an organization I care so strongly for makes the endeavor that much more exciting. I am hopeful for the outcome of the elections, as well as the outcome of the banquets I’m helping. Also, I felt ecstatic this week, because just last night the flag football team I play for won our first game of playoffs! It was hella close. Like 2 points close, and we had to stop them on all four downs. Now just have to finish these next three games and you can see us taking home the gold. :D

#blog #bestandworst

[zoe-truong]

Fun Home 2

Ayyyye 4/20 blaze it! (lol sorry)

The more I read Fun Home the further I fall down the rabbit hole of Alison Bechdel’s life. And that’s not just a fun pun because it’s Easter (it partly is). The ripple effect that goes from her father’s trauma to her own trauma is heart-wrenching to follow along, but it just goes to show how incredibly pivotal a person’s environment is to the way they carry out their life.

In many aspects their own personal strength controls ways they react to certain situations, like Alison’s decision to embrace her homosexuality versus her father’s method to suppress it. However, when you really examine these two ways of life down to the nitty gritty, it still is a display of nurture overcoming nature. It’s quite possible that Alison’s father wouldn’t have to had suppressed all of these painful emotions and self-loathing for his homosexuality were it not for where he lived. In a small town, with such a close-proximity to the rest of his family, Alison laments how “if only he’d been able to escape the gravitational tug of Beech Creek...his particular sun might not have set in so precipitate a manner.” (125) Compare this to Alison coming to terms with her own sexuality in college, typically a place where every person is unraveling their identity in an environment of potentially more open-minded students. You get to breathe easier about your problems when people are just as confused and open about dissecting the anomalies you all are.

 But, when you’re alone in your thoughts, surrounded by people who could throw you out of the only place you’ve really known, then you spiral down to a self-harming assumption that “I'm bad. Not good like you.” (153). It then becomes clear that where you experience life and how you experience it ultimately determines future endeavors. In many ways it’s hard to digest this fact, because then you have to accept the fact that life is indeed unfair sometimes. For example, Alison developing an obsessive compulsive disorder could be attributed to how isolated she constantly was in her own mind thanks to a non-interactive family. Everyone kept to themselves, growing their own passions, but forgetting the fact that they were indeed a family, “and in this isolation, [their] creativity took on an aspect of compulsion.”(134) Then who is to blame in it all? Can we blame the father for raising his children to be apathetic like him, or can we go further back to blame the farm hand who raped him as a child and took away his innocence? And how about after the fact, when Alison’s “mother apparently decided that [her] some attention might help [her OCD], and began reading to [her] while [she] had [her] bath. But it was too much, too late.” (142) 

It was really satisfying to see the small bits of genuine character that escaped from Alison’s father’s normal demeanor. Like the whole canary-colored caravan anecdote was nice, maybe not for the way he controlled Alison’s choice of colors for the caravan, but the strong passion when it comes to aesthetic. I can be like this sometimes. I love doing art, and venturing out of the non-realistic color palette gets to me sometimes. Of course, some artists can mix colors in such an unrealistic but beautiful way that I can’t help but that envy that innate sense of color. However, even without that imagination to expand past the norm, Alison’s father still finds excitement with the norm. He sits there, correcting Alison’s choice of colors, but also gives a teaching moment by saying, “Look. By adding thin layers of goldenrod and yellow-orange, I get a richer color.” (131) Maybe to get to see this genuine self beneath her father, Alison just had to show some interest or desire to learn. People are only truly passionate about things in their life when it’s not their goal to quash other’s potential out of a competitive nature, but instead to encourage. If you were really passionate about it, then when people show genuine interest or attempt to follow your footsteps, you wouldn’t point out their flaws and belittle their effort. For that reason is why I appreciate the effort put forth by Alison’s dad to share some insight on coloring. You can see that he really has a wonderful sense of color, and that he actively utilizes this skill, as the “the infinite gradations of color in a fine sunset--from salmon to canary to midnight blue--left him wordless.” (150)

Over all I felt this novel was so well thought-out. Everything from the illustrations (though that’s mostly from my inner artist) to the smaller stories hidden within the book aided to the impact of the words. For example, when Alison is helping her mother recite lines for the play, if you pay attention to what they’re saying to each other you can see how the lines follow the narrative. When Alison gets her period, her mother’s line is “an engagement should on come on a young girl as a surprise” (154) and when she’s simply talking generally about her mother, the lines read that “I have lost both my parents” “Both? That seems like carelessness.” (158) Those last two lines are especially telling of the childhood Alison and her brothers lived through, where even in a seemingly perfect family can feel like nothing. Maybe in Alison’s eyes he has lost her parents. Her mother is apathetic, absorbed in her own passions and invested in completion of her Master’s thesis. On the other side, her father was shutting the door of his dark secrets, quietly locking it away in a pristine area to cover up how dirty he felt about it. When Alison so much as mentioned to her father the negative connotations associated with being gay she “dropped the subject. Partly because of his derision, but mostly because of the fear in his eyes.” (219). In this way, her dad was gone too because he was not himself. He was not the person he wanted to be, thus killing this part of him through disguise and in reality.

Be grateful for the life you were born in to. You don’t know what hoops some people had to jump through just to get to where you are. Maybe they’re still battling their own demons, or maybe they’ve valiantly overcome them, but either way it does no harm to you to give the benefit of the doubt.

#blog #fun home #compassion #empathy

[zoe-truong]

Fun Home 1

You know when you read a book with some cryptic title that for all intents and purposes seems to have no relation to the story? Then, as you scan the words you spot it, sometimes said in the climax of a situation or stated as a fact. It’s almost satisfying, like finding the phrase for Their Eyes Were Watching God or The Fault in Our Stars. You find a deeper connection with the plot and possibly get insight into some Easter Eggs (ha I’m writing this on Easter! Okay sorry I digress) that wouldn’t be obvious without this reveal. Well, Fun Home did that for me. 

It’s an ironic title, though you could deduce that from the description that it’s a family tragicomic. The “Fun Home” for Alison’s parents was the business. But for her and her brothers it was still just another place they could be kids, as grossly warped the location is. Her father was always putting them to work, as they “had lots of chores at the fun home, but also many interesting opportunities for play.” (37) Interesting probably for the fact they were indeed pretending to play airplane inside a funeral home. But the most compelling part of this book for me was the illusion of perfection.

With the ease of sharing life through social media, it’s easy for people to get caught up in loathing the fact their life isn’t as fun, adventurous, luxurious, or social as their friends. You see the new house you friend moved into, you might feel impressed by how magnificent it is or you might feel spite for how rich their family is. But for your friend, “when other children called [their] house a mansion, [they] would demur.” (5) Maybe they didn’t like the way people placed them in some other group just because they were born into a rich life, or maybe they just liked showing off all of the money they could throw around. Who knows? That’s the thing. No one knows. No one can be sure of what hides behind the lavish front door or the expansive curtains.

 We don’t know for sure if Alison’s father had actually died in some freak accident or suicide. “The truck driver describer [her] father as jumping backward into the road “as if he saw a snake.” And who knows. Perhaps he did.” (89) You can’t just This ambiguity plagued the Fun Home, all for the simple fact that Alison’s father orchestrated this puzzle of a life and a house. “He appeared to be an ideal husband and father, for example,” (17) but Allison reveals he was anything but these things. So before you loathe the life people seem to live just like her father’s “headstone is an obelisk, a striking anachronism among the ungainly granite slabs in the new end of the cemetery,” (29) understand that it could easily be a façade. While the intentions of the obelisk was to “[symbolize] life” (29) the life of the person beneath the grave could have used it to distract the completely different different outlook they had. You wouldn’t know, I wouldn’t know, but I know that thinking back to the sympathetic imagination drilled into me from the beginning of my world lit adventure is more important now than ever.

When Alison found out that her father was not only gay, but also molested a child, you start to feel sympathy for this man. In the beginning you resent the fact that he quite possibly ruined his children’s response to pain, but “the narrative of Fun Home is non-linear and recursive. Incidents are told and re-told in the light of new information or themes.” (anthology 948) There’s always some new aspect of his puzzle of a life that when you think back at the previous anecdotes, the life pieces together just a little better now. When Alison’s father suddenly called Alison in to bring the scissors to him, “there was some practical exchange with [her] father during which [she] studiously betrayed no emotion.” (44) Plenty of children would be shocked, horrified to see a cadaver, nude and cut open. However, Alison skillfully pushes down any of these emotions. This is a skill carried even past her childhood, where “for years after [her] father’s death, when the subject of parents came up in conversation [she] would relate the information in a flat, matter-of-fact tone... eager to detect in [her] listener the flinch of grief that eluded her.” (45) This parallels very well to Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of The Universe. For all of Ari’s life, he put up a strong mien to shield the emotionless emptiness he felt inside. Anytime something came up, he pushed it down, refusing to acknowledge its existence, much like his father did. As a result, there’s a serious disconnect in perception and feeling.

 To grow up in a household where Alison “witnessed only two gestures of affection between [her parents]” combined with the draconian role her father played out in front of the family was crushing to Alison and her brothers ability to just be like normal people. People who shouldn’t be “dry-eyed and sheepish” in front of their father’s embalmed body “[looking[ for as long as [they] sensed it was appropriate.” (52) But it’s the reaction that’s almost expected growing up in a house like they did: the “Fun Home”. Their father was a master of disguise. He lived in a pristine home with a wife and three children, but actually held a dark secret of homosexuality. His passion and ability to “cultivate the barren yard into a lush, flowering landscape” (10)  could probably be ascribed to the fact that he so desperately wants to push down any inkling of his dark secret behind  an aesthetically perfect view. But we know his life was anything but aesthetically perfect. For his wife, she liked a poem because “its juxtaposition of catastrophe with a plush domestic interior is life with [Alison’s] father in a nutshell.” (83) Even with this overall misery in the house, her father still tried his best to let everyone else see a perfect family, which was only made possibly by the way he trained everyone in his family to be jaded. If they could be apathetic about things in life, then it would help abate his fear  “of coming out, as illustrated by “the fear in his eyes” when the conversation topic is dangerously close to homosexuality.” (anthology-949) It’s easy to feel just as conflicted Alison did regarding her father. There were definitive moments in her life where he did act like a father, but these were few and far between from the harsh but mysterious man he usually was. The demons people hold can wreak havoc on their minds, and sometimes it’s the way they hide them that can be the most dangerous. Reminds me of an Imagine Dragons song I loved listening to. 

It’s a really important message I think, because it’s congruent with so many of the concepts we’ve learned in world lit. Love versus fear. Empathy. Compassion. Sympathetic Imagination. They all play out in Fun Home. They’re most striking in their absence. When fear overrides love, when empathy and compassion are nonexistent, and when the sympathetic imagination is hard to tap in to. It’s kind of like how “you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.” Well, when you don’t have all of the previously stated things, this is what happens. It’s pretty sad.

#blog #fun home #empathy #compassion #sympathetic imagination

[zoe-truong]

Week Twelve

This past week my emotions have ranged from incompetent, disgraced, and resigned to affectionate, purposeful, and appreciative.

Overall net negative week. Like really net negative. As you know I had like three exams last week and studying for them was actual murder. You know, that isn’t including all of the homework I had for the classes where I didn’t have exams. Anyways, I felt really incompetent because I had so much trouble studying for the exams. Maybe just that sense of being so overwhelmed was what made it hard to focus, especially when writing P4 (like damn, that was unbelievably difficult) Sometimes I’d just sit or lay there unable to find the drive to study. Anyways, I didn’t even do well on them so I felt incredibly disgraced because I went through a lot of stress just to get a subpar, or even condemnable grade. Seems like all of that suffering was a useless effort. I know it’s just school, and frankly other people went through lots more stress than I did, but wow that was just a rough week. It also didn’t help that there were exterior factors outside of school that really ruined my mood often and made me both self-conscious and full of constantly negative thoughts. So, with all of those happenings I was left feeling very resigned thanks to the shit week I went through. I’m feeling better now, but that’s because I’m less stressed. Those same aches of resent are still stuck with me and sometimes I wonder if I really deserve to be here. It kind of sucks and I should consider getting a better mindset about things but I can’t help feeling so negative about it all.

On the flip side, I had the fortunate opportunity to volunteer at the Austin Animal Shelter with my organization this last Friday. I’ve never been there before so it was a really happy experience for me because if anyone knows me I love dogs. They make me so happy :) Teamed up with two other people from my club, we got to walk about 4 dogs? Three of them are “green” dogs in that they’re perfectly happy and safe to walk for the public. The last dog we walked was a “blue” dog, because we had more experience walking the “green” dogs. Anyways, I felt very affectionate playing with all of these dogs. They were so sweet and just so happy to get out and interact with all of the people. There were areas in the back for the dogs to walk around on the grass and fenced off areas for the dogs to play with various toys. Being there made me feel a little sad, because these were animals with no definitive homes, some with serious medical issues. As a result, I felt purposeful, because here I was, a normal healthy person who could give these dogs some brief respite while living at the shelter. I wish I could talk home all of those dogs and take care of them, but I know that could never happen. Looking at those dogs and thinking of my own dog made me realize how there are still so many animals in this world who need our help. Humans are the cause of their suffering, so humans need to take responsibility to undue that trouble. I hope for a day where people know how to take care of their animals by neutering them and treating them with the respect they deserve. Too many families want a pet but do not realize the extent of care required to take care of another living being. Most of the dogs at these shelters are a result of these problems, so it’s made me appreciative. Appreciative for the life I can give my dog, appreciative for the safety the shelters can give for these dogs, and appreciative for the privilege I have to spread awareness for all other dogs. 

This is Mr. Bojangles. Isn’t he just the sweetest looking dog you’ve ever seen?

#blog #bestandworst

[zoe-truong]

P4

Organization, Transitions, and Word Choice

Option 1

I stumbled upon an image not long ago on a popular, niche website called Reddit. The image depicted a well-known Japanese concept of life called Ikigai: A reason for being. In a sense, a person can only reach the pinnacle of purpose at the cross-section of what they love doing, what they are good at, what they can be paid for, and what the world needs. Leave it to me to have an existential crisis after realizing my plans for the future fall short of a perfect Ikigai.

In order to discover this ideal area, I have to go through an arduous process of evaluating the aspects of my character that hold the greatest value. Over the course of my first year in college, I’ve performed the most excruciating autopsy on my identity. At this point I feel as though I’ve taken every personality questionnaire or strengths assessment quiz out there. The qualifiers were nice to categorize who I was as a leader on campus, but I think the biggest growth and step forward I’ve seen in my college career is through my curriculum.

I’ve written a number of essays for World Literature that cover a spectrum of challenging concepts, anything from systemic racism to the carnism ideology. In each blog, in each paper I find myself questioning the way I view the world. How is it that these problems exist today and why am I a bystander? I hastily evaded the topic of my true passion in P3, because frankly I was clueless. Up until that paper, I was certain that my passion laid in my love for the stock market. However, when looking at this “passion” through the lens of the Ikigai, pursuing my parent’s dreams ignores the requisites that give my goals meaning, purpose.

While I purposefully work towards a future on Wall Street, at times I have to force myself to keep going. This is different from working hard to improve, maybe more akin to reluctance due to dissatisfaction. With this dissatisfaction comes fear: fear of being wrong, fear of being inadequate, fear of failing. If I fail, then what do I have left? Maybe nothing, but I didn’t spend years in a higher education without preparing contingency plans. I often forget that my ideal job is not the end of the road. The only thing more unknown than my future is myself, because the way I will perceive or approach the world will be incomparable to how I did years prior. The only thing I can control now is my action plan for the future. These are the steps I can put forth towards my education so that I can confidently go into the workforce, regardless if it’s the one I expected or not.

I’d likely still be going through that existential crisis were it not for Plan II, because the program’s broad curriculum makes me a little more comfortable about my prospects in life. Every class underscores the university’s values on ethical reasoning, and it is my job to carry this awareness throughout every step of my life. My knowledge doesn’t disappear with my failure, but rather stays waiting until I can redirect it to a new path. I know that “with everything falling down around me, I’d like to believe in all the possibilities”[1] of what I am capable of doing. Thinking of my life in that way, I can think of a few options left in the debris of my failure.

I will always have a strong love for art, animals, and Buddhism. These are three things in my life that I could say evoke the most passionate responses from me whether in practice or in discourse. Firstly, everyone has their own outlet for stress; mine comes in the form of drawing. When faced with worry, confusion, anger, or any unpleasant emotion, I articulate my thoughts through pencil strokes. Secondly, when I unwittingly watch a video or movie with animal deaths, I get incredibly emotional. The helplessness of these poor creatures in the face of cynical humans is something that causes intense frustration and sorrow. And finally, I have found myself connecting with my Buddhist self as of late. I’ve always used Buddhism as a moral compass, because religion has never been a defining part of my life. However, the timing of World Literature with my Buddhist organization has brought me closer than ever to integrating these moral lessons into my life. Impermanence, the Four Noble Truths, and the Five Precepts anchor themselves in my life decisions and expand my worldview.

So, left with these three ideas in mind, I have to figure the different ways I can simultaneously advance through my education and stay connected with these interests. The problem I have to get past is that my classes will not always be relevant to my passions. As much as I could try, Investment Management does not exactly cater to Buddhist ideals. But like I expanded my consciousness to “hammer [my] thoughts into unity,”[2] I am capable of taking with me something valuable from each class.

In my P3, I eluded to some vague grasp of the “Truth” in life and how I expect to incorporate that into my future. But, in writing this essay, I realized that it was a pretty half-hearted attempt. For as long as I can remember, my future was synonymous with my career path. At the behest of this essay, I recognized that there was more to life besides finding ways to stand out as a businesswoman. Let me clarify that building upon my ethical reasoning will still be important, but I plan to broaden the applications of it. Besides using compassion to become a better financial analyst, I want to become a better leader. The great thing about leadership is that it isn’t restricted to the people who excel at delegating or producing the most ambitious ideas. “Some roles are more visibly "the leader" than others, but they can all contribute to the overall leadership effort.”[3] And in enforcing this idea can I ascribe ethical reasoning to education, work environments, or life. I want to use my open-mindedness to assist others, rather than exploit the financial markets with fine-tuned methods of deceit. But when I look at my life with the financial career out of the picture, that standard of ethics still stands true. I will always take in others’ perspectives at all times and try to find the most harmonious solution in any situation. And in the process of writing this paper, I realized how now more than ever is the time to start putting this ethical reasoning in to action.

Not too long ago the President of the United States, Donald Trump, announced a string of potential budget cuts to reduce our nation’s debt.[4] Many of his proposals were shocking to say the least, but the one that brought me to my feet was the elimination of the National Endowments for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. For all of my life, art has been the vehicle for my emotions. I’ll be sitting in class, pencil hovering over a mockingly difficult exam, focusing all of my attention to a free response problem while my brain is conjuring solutions. Unintentionally, my hand flits across the sheet, outlining small pandas or swirls of stars. Drawing is natural for me. Even when my mind is elsewhere, my hand goes through the motions of mindless doodles like a reflex. So, when the new administration is considering to eliminate this opportunity to create and be creative, how can my conscious self stand back when my unconscious self will never stop drawing?

It is with these facts and while writing this paper that I stopped to consider a world without art. It’d be dreary, unimaginative, and restrictive. I had the privilege to grow up in a household brimming with artistic minds and a plethora of tools at my disposal, but so many children across the country barely have free sheets of paper and pencils. Drawing did more than let me be expressive; it helped me visualize my problems or promote my curiosity. If I’m illustrating a realistic piece, I have to study the proportions and analyze the characteristics of the model that translate well onto the page. If i’m painting a scene, I have to go through constant trial and error to find the corresponding color—correctly accounting for undertones and highlights. By taking away the Endowments for the Arts, the administration is going to be discouraging entire generations of children from a world of extremely critical thinking. Three-hundred million dollars[5] is definitely a steep grant, but the opportunity costs for that money does not touch the value of investing a life enriched by creative thinking.

I know that by working as an artist alone cannot protect this amount of money, but I hope to reach a point in my life where I can dedicate all of my time to advocating for the arts and working with children. This is how my career plan is a means to an end. Thinking back to that ikigai, the world doesn’t need a financial analyst, but my career would supplement the three other parts of my life I need to live comfortably. However, I can’t be content making money without fulfilling that sense of purpose. I still love the stock market, but when the time comes where I won’t have to worry about sustaining myself well into the future, I can instead turn my attention to sustaining the arts for the nation’s future. Sure to some people art can be pretentious or overvalued, but it still means something to someone. And for that reason, regardless of what art means to some child in Midwest America or New England, I will be the one to lead the charge to protect this cultural cornerstone.

It’s not going to be an easy task, especially with how the rest of my college years are laid out. I didn’t really expect to ever put art back into my curriculum after I graduated high school, because it was never something I felt would every substantially complete me, financially and emotionally. However, I don’t think my finance and Plan II track will impede me in any way, because like I said in P3, “Unweaving [my intended curriculum] by reading more, learning more, and challenging myself more is conducive to connecting my ethical reasoning to my future.”[6] Yes, artistic endeavors do require ethical reasoning. Some of the most powerful pieces, like the photo of the Napalm Girl or any of Banksy’s graffiti works are reason enough to show how challenging today’s ideologies through art causes a domino effect around society. In many ways, art is like education. Students connect with their professors and see them “[show] such a passion for thought that, by their example, they make one want to think.”[7] Art works in just the same way.

So in order to foster this same perceptiveness, I have to actively work and pay attention to how my professors think in every class. I think the most valuable classes would be the ones that constantly challenge my thoughts and help me understand other people. For example, the year-long Plan II Philosophy course forces students to face uncomfortable problems or try unorthodox methods of thinking. However, if I really want to engage with children and learn how to advocate for the importance of the arts, I should start thinking about classes that can best articulate my assertions and allow me to interact with younger children to help them express themselves as I did with art. Anything from the social sciences to the heavy writing-based courses like World Literature are the stepping stones for that aspect of my leadership vision.

Writing is not an easy process. In fact, writing is an art. Unfortunately, I do not have the natural inclination to the art of writing as I do the art of drawing, but I still submit to the same processes required to create valuable works. To write something worthwhile like these World Literature papers, one has to thoughtfully consider the points one needs to address in the work in a way that is both persuasive and interesting. Any length of work —blog, essay, thesis— will force the writer to carefully consider each word, choosing only the right ones that allows her “to seek the truth and express it.”[8] I always strive to seek the truth in every class. I may not always be right, but the important thing is that I open myself up to new perspectives to find what’s right. I don’t think I could have really been capable of being as open-minded as I have been without World Literature. Reading novels of walks of life I’ll never meet has helped me better understand this disparate world we live in and motivated me to protect the most basic rights of the underprivileged.

I know I started off this paper with lots of doubt, but thinking thoughtfully about how I can make the world a better place was well worth the torture. All those hoping to learn and succeed should go through the same process of self-discovery to become amore compassionate and contributing member of society. I know that I could set my goals so much higher and broader than encouraging an environment for art, but I know that where I can be most impactful is in a world I know and love.

Word Count: 2253  Word Count without quotes: 2169

Citations:

[1] C'mon, by Andrew Dost, Decaydance / Fueled by Ramen Records, 2011, LP, accessed April 11, 2017, http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/panicatthedisco/cmon.html.

[2]  William B. Yeats, "Transfer of Power," Jerome Bump, last modified August 7, 2012, accessed April 11, 2017, http://www.la.utexas.edu/users/bump/603A13/LeadingClassDiscussion603.html.

[3]  Robert J. Lee, "Ground Your Leadership Vision in Personal Vision," in Discovering the Leader in You (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2010), 34, accessed April 10, 2017, https://www.la.utexas.edu/users/bump/DiscoverLeader.pdf.

[4] Sopan Deb, "Trump Proposes Eliminating the Arts and Humanities Endowments," The New York Times, last modified March 15, 2017, accessed April 11, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/arts/nea-neh-endowments-trump.html.

[5] Deb, "Trump Proposes," The New York Times.

[6]  Zoë Truong, "Understanding My Ethics," last modified March 9, 2017, Microsoft Word.

[7]  Jon Schwartz, "The Web of Campus Life," in Texas, Our Texas, comp. Bryan A. Garner (Austin, TX: Eakin Press, 1984), 161, accessed April 10, 2017, https://www.la.utexas.edu/users/bump/TexasLeaders.pdf.

[8] "The Core Purpose of the University," in Composition and World Literature (Austin, TX: Jenn's, 2016), 1:90.

Media Citations: 

Ikigai: https://www.reddit.com/r/GetMotivated/comments/63cf1k/image_ikigai/

Limitless Possibilites: http://www.gratitudexp.com/2015/01/09/this-year-embrace-the-limitless-possibilities/

Hammer Your Thoughts Into Unity: http://www.la.utexas.edu/users/bump/images/hammer.html

NEA: https://www.arts.gov/grants/manage-your-award/nea-logo

Arts and Creativity: http://www.actualinsights.com/2014/art-science-creativity-susan-weinschenk-video/

Writing: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/why-writing-good-therapy

#blog #p4

[zoe-truong]

Saenz 2

It may be because I started writing this at 3:45 am or because this book is just that beautiful (I’d like to believe the latter), but Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is an incredible, emotional rollercoaster. Yes, yes I did cry a couple of times.

Honestly, throughout the book I was a little frustrated by how unreadable many of the characters were. In general I could pick up the subtle signs after conversations, but their reactions to things left me confused. I suppose that’s the point though. You really never understand a person perfectly. Take for example Ari. In many ways I could really empathize with Ari. He was quiet and kept to himself. He went through life working hard, but never finding what he was best at like Dante. Ari “was getting an A for work. But not for talent. The story of my life.” (198) I mean, yea same. Wow that truth hurts so much. But most importantly, Ari evaded emotions. This of course is a result of the way his parents handled situations in his childhood. However, even with all of that self control, “sometimes, you do things and you do them not because you’re thinking but because you’re feeling. Because you’re feeling too much.” (311) In my opinion, it’s always better to think before you speak or act. I’m just not a spontaneous person. I don’t like the way I feel after I do something without thinking first. I have a brain, and I know I do it an injustice if I don’t use it in crucial moments. Everyone isn’t the same though. For some people, they could see that there isn’t time to think in a situation. I think it’s subjective, but there’s no denying that “to be careful with people and with words was a rare and beautiful thing.” (324) Ari would think that since he can be an impulsive person. But there is definite truth to it, especially with the way the world works today. Everything is all about speed: the fastest internet, the quickest news, the most recent social media gossip. Humans have become a lot more impatient and a lot less introspective. We get frustrated when a web page takes any longer than 5-10 second to load. When we hear about a story, without knowing the full details or validity of it, we immediately tweet, post, or share our emotion-filled opinions. What ever happened to perspectives? Has quality lost out to time? I suppose it has, because to find some well-thought out words is a rare and beautiful thing today. 

I really think this book touched upon this problem well. Ari’s parents, Dante’s parents, and Dante all understood this careful way of speaking, but Ari didn’t. He may hold his emotions in, but he knew ways to bring out his frustrations. Some definitely unhealthy ways. But that’s what I love about Ari. His character has so much depth and evolved so well throughout the book. The way Saenz wrote Ari’s obliviousness to his true love for Dante made me pretty sad. There were so many indicators of how Ari’s mind tried to suppress this homosexuality; he just didn’t want to come to the conclusion that he loved his best friend. Instead, when he “was always thinking of Dante, always trying to figure him out, always wondering why it was that [they] were friends and why it seemed to matter so much.” (262) It mattered because he loved him, but he didn’t know that. So how does he cope? Let’s start off with Ileana. In the beginning you believe he’s attracted to her beauty and the night sky in her eyes. For once a beautiful, mysterious girl was showing sudden interest to Ari. More than that, her eyes remind him of something he loves the most, his “favorite spot” where “it was just past twilight and the stars were coming out from where it was they hid during the day.” (250) This place was more than just a beautiful view, but it was the place where he was curious about the secrets of the universe. It was all because of Dante. He feels those immense emotions when he thinks about the stars in Ilea’s eyes. Anyways, let’s start off with the nightmares.

 Ari talks about how he has nightmares, where he drives in his new truck with Ileana --a girl he’s never spoke to before-- and he runs over Dante, unwillingly. He becomes so introspective and fearful for this reoccurring dream, because “If dreams don’t come nowhere, then what does it mean that I ran over Dante in my dream?...Both times I was staring at Ileana when I ran over Dante.” (180) I believe this is Ari’s subconscious trying to trick him into thinking that he isn’t homosexual. His dreams are trying to kill this love for Dante by redirecting his attention to Ileana. But we know these aren’t good dreams, they’re nightmares. He stares at Ilea but he frightfully runs over his best friend. So, Ari expectedly takes it that he’s falling for Ilea, not Dante because he says,“I’m a guy. He’s a guy. It’s not the way things are supposed to be.” (349) 

Both Ari’s subconscious and conscious self are outrightly denying all of Dante’s insinuations and advances. He’s afraid of love. But like Bump taught us, we should always choose love over fear. Fear makes us irrational. When Dante talks Ari into kissing him just to see if he really wasn’t gay, “[Ari] kissed him back.” However, he didn't like how suddenly Dante was expressing his homosexuality. It made him scared, scared of the dangers of being homosexual and admitting that he loved his best friend. And then [Dante] started really kissing [him]. And [he] pulled away.”(255) Ari tries so hard to play the bad guy. He wants people to “look at [him]” with “a look of panic on [their] face.” (311) Being gay wouldn’t help him accomplish his goal of being a bad guy; It’d destroy any chances of it happening. He’d be targeted, embarrassed, and shamed. Maybe instead of Dante being beaten to a pulp, Ari would be “unrecognizable” where you “couldn’t even see the color of his eyes.” (306) But his parents break down those barriers he built. It wasn’t easy. In fact, his parents had to open first before he could open up. Ari had already felt too much hurt from the way his parents kept more than their own pasts a secret, but their entire family’s past a secret. Since his own family would never open up, he’d internalize his ordeals, fighting the wars inside himself, but he’s “fighting this war in the worst possible way”(319) and without knowing how to ask for help either. It was wonderful seeing Ari’s dad slowly shift from his apathetic self to his emotional, apologetic, vulnerable, fatherly figure for Ari so that he can finally be free. And free he was. In the end, after all is said and done, Ari’s parents helped him realize his love for Dante. Just like his parents had to admit their mistakes and the things that hurt them the most, Ari had to admit that he loved Dante and that running away from it all was hurting him the most. Finally, finally Aristotle came to terms with it all and confessed to Dante, and Dante returned his love. Finally Ari “wasn’t afraid anymore” and realized “How could I have ever been ashamed of loving Dante Quintana?” (359) Yea. I don’t know either Ari. I don’t know. (I cried at the end it’s fine)

#blog #aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe #saenz

[zoe-truong]

Bacha Posh 2

“Was I going to go bound as a man, or free as a woman?” (100)

It’s interesting that when she plans to go to Mecca, she wonders her choice on her appearance and sees it this way. All this time, dressing like a man was in a way a freedom. She had “chosen to wear these men’s clothes forty years ago” (124) to escape the oppressive nature of being a woman, but now as she awaits to present herself to Allah it’s clear that showing herself as a woman is the true freedom. She wants the freedom for Him to accept her as she is. But since Allah had forgiven her, she could be free as a woman in man’s clothes.

“She has paid the price, and that is her choice. Let us love her.” (111)

The tension that once existed dissipated so quickly because this leader recognized Ukmina as who she was. A leader, a warrior, a man, and a woman. He put value to her struggle, even if they were against the law and society’s beliefs. If it weren’t for the leader of the Council then maybe Ukmina might have faced some difficulty in this new place of power. This is so important to recognize, because it points to the issue we have in society today. The reluctance of the people in power--the ones who gained prominence either through hard work or their birthright-- to speak up for and lead the marginalized peoples.

 Sure, Ukmina did prove herself through all of her acts, but she still faced judgment and criticism from her equals. However, it takes someone who the rest of the council will listen to to acknowledge the fact that Ukmina is more worthy than they could imagine. This is what today’s presidents, senators, mayors, celebrities, investors, scientists, and all other well-known, privileged members of society need to return to the less fortunate. If they don’t then all these people like Ukmina could hope to wonder is if “anyone [cared] about us, poor Afghans from the mountains.” (121) Understanding that marginalized people are just as worthy to be where they are, regardless of society’s perception of them, is indispensable to normalizing their existence. These people deserve to be recognized. They just want “to make democracy a weapon, to make [themselves] heard--the poor Afghans nobody had listened to for decades.” (107) People often joke about how celebrities marketing products is silly, but they don’t realize the voice and power these celebrities have. Now, imagine instead if an entire group of celebrities voiced out for the improvement of people’s lives. Think of the potential for change. 

“When he arrived two hours later, he retrieved the ladies, taking them without a word to the back of a pickup truck, like animals. There is no other comparison.” (116)

Even though Ukmina had fought for her place in this world, there is still no denying the sexism running rampant. Of course there is the country’s culture and tradition, but to some men, all that these women will ever be seen is as animals. And this is a problematic thought, because as long as we treat animals the way we do, men will treat these women the way that they do. It’s appalling to not even be treated with the respect of a human, but these are the types of problems that Ukmina strives to destroy. She “made the move, because [she is] a man,” (86) and without this strength she wouldn’t have made so many milestones in her life and in the life of women everywhere.

“There I was, in front of her--and I want to say, Her--with a capital letter. Because like Him, the Great Allah, she had guided my way.” (145)

There will be people out there in this world that empower you to be better, and they don’t even know it. People who are out there looking for their passions, their callings in life, but along the way inspire the young kids around them. I’m sure that Bagdai knew the precedent she was setting for young women in her country, but for her to have inspired Ukmina, “the bravest woman; the other would not do this--they do not have the courage. [She has] it for them!” (130) Everyone has to start somewhere, and in this case Ukmina started with a dream to have the same bravery as Bagdai. She may have even superseded the path paved by her inspiration, and in the end, isn’t that what everyone wants to do? To leave the world a better place than it was before? 

#blog #I am a bacha posh

[zoe-truong]

Week Eleven

My emotions this past week have ranged from dismayed, numb, and cowardly to comforted, ecstatic, and festive. (PSA: these happy emotions were short and fleeting)

Ahh let’s start with the happy. This Saturday I went to the Zilker Botanical Gardens to take promo pictures with my club. I was chosen to help with the Spring Banquet at the end of the year so took pictures for it too. I felt pretty comforted being around good friends in a really peaceful environment. It was the first time I’ve ever been to the Botanical Gardens being in so peaceful of an environment was refreshing. Also on Sunday I got to go to Panic! at the Disco’s Death of a Bachelor concert at the Frank Erwin Center. I was ecstatic because my best friend, Alyssa, drove from Trinity to enjoy it with me. We’re huge P!ATD fans (3 concerts in 1.5 years we have 0 chill). I felt festive the entire time, because I really loved this last album and it was just so fun getting to unwind by dancing and singing my heart out with my pal. The concert was nothing short of amazing. Brendon Urie is beautiful, perfect, and too talented to be real.

Well every day sans the weekend has been just the worst. I’ve felt really dismayed this week because I have just a shit ton of things to do and don’t really know how to handle it all well. I feel like there’s just this heavy amount of responsibility that requires all of my focus, except for the fact that on average about 60% of my focus is present at crucial study times. Sleep has been minimal and apathy has gone to new highs. As I get past each day, closer to one exam, I get this numbness. I don’t care about the midterm I just took. There will be no looking back to see if I did get that question right or not. It’s pretty sucky. As a result of all of this stress, apathy, and overall selfishness in my work, I’ve felt really cowardly. Let me explain. I tend to not like it when people spend every moment of their life just complaining about the things in their life. And this isn’t me being rude or whatever. Talking about things in your life is relaxing. Y’know, venting. But sometimes there are people who’s only conversation starter is the things they have to do. Obviously I won’t dismiss the stress of someone who really has something rough going on in their life, but I generally tend to find those that only find the things in life to complain about to be some of the most selfish. You aren’t the only person with worries or responsibilities, but you sure as hell make it seem that way. It never seems to be that you care for the person you’re talking to or what they have going on. Anyways, I’ve felt like that’s all I’ve been doing lately and it’s just the worst. I feel out of the loop on my friend’s lives. I can’t look past the fact that I have so much work to see that there are people in my life who do too but they’re just better at hiding it. Really, there lives at the moment could be worse but they don’t spend their time shooting for pity points. Yea, I have a fuck ton of things to do, but so does everyone else. It’s school. Not that special. So I’ve felt cowardly for not recognizing this fact earlier and owning up to my responsibility. It probably is not as bad as I make it, but I don’t have the courage to just handle it myself. And worst of all, I’m afraid that all of this will make me be hurtful to those close to me. Usually I try to keep my emotions in check so that I don’t project my problems onto others, but this past week has made it hard to be engaging with my friends. In a way, it can be perceived as anger. And I really, really don’t want to be a product of my emotions. It’s a cheap excuse for selfishness. So all in all, net negative week for sure.

#blog #bestandworst

[zoe-truong]

Bacha Posh 1

It is a really good thing that I moved my leadership day, because wow. This is going to be the shoddiest, most half-assed blogpost you will ever see and I am incredibly sorry. Three exams, two major assignments, and poorly timed events will do that to a blogpost. Je suis désolée.

“Anything that talks about my people is better than nothing.” (2)

There is such a large disparity in understanding of what people think is integrating and what is ignoring. Just because people don’t acknowledge aspects of a race or a country, does not mean that it shouldn’t be acknowledged. What I mean by this is that avoiding the subject is not gonna make it any easier to digest in the future. When there is an obvious problem, like police brutality or racial prejudice, ignoring the problem is not going to fix it. Regardless if it applies to an entire group or not, it’s important that we address the issues. In this sense, Ukmina is in a special group of people whose voice is so important to improving obvious gender issues in Afghanistan. Ukmina needed to “fight with the weapons of the other sex--bee like a man to escape [her] destiny as a woman.” (35) People like to decry the issues in the Middle East, criticizing their practices, without finding solutions. It’s easy to complain. It’s not easy to make change. That’s why we need to give a voice to the marginalized like Ukmina. She can break the stigma about her people while helping find ways to escape the problem she lived through.

“They could kill anyone by mistake or simply as a warning.” (53)

War is brutal. Anyone knows this. And it’s hard to every say that some people die for the greater good, because what did they do to deserve such negligent treatment? They never asked to be part of the war: their leaders did. Of course, sometimes there were people like Ukmina that were ready to protect their country, leaving themselves to the point where she “could not tell the difference between the noise of the propeller blades in the distance and [her] own hunger.” (57) That is their decision, but it is not the decision of the entire country to put their lives on the line for the conflict. When we get to the point of defending an undeserved death from mistake or as a warning, then we obviously get to the crux of war. 

“I became a prisoner of my condition. Neither man nor woman, I was suspicious to all.” (72)

It’s awful to see the entire struggle that Ukmina goes through just to taste the freedom that women are hindered from, and yet she still faces so many problems. Her sole purpose growing up was to be a boy, but she still faces fear years later. She cannot let herself fall to the oppression of the government by wearing the burqa, but she cannot put herself at risk by going out now that she is an adult. She desires to be as strong as Bagdai, who “was a symbolic figure because she was the first woman who dared wear men’s clothing and sustain herself for the needs of her family following the murders of her two loving brothers.” (34) People like Bagdai are the ones who can break the oppressive regime, but it’s easy to break those people as well. It’s so sad to think that Ukmina fought and loved her country, and yet she braved this terror and fear if her country only steps on her.

(Better blogs will come. They will. Please be patient as this Pika is currently making heated trips down the academic mountain in 80º weather hoping she doesn’t die.)

#blog #I am a bacha posh

[zoe-truong]

Week 10

This past week my emotions have ranged from adventurous, excitement, and jubilance, to anxiety, constricted, and unmotivated.

This past week was mostly unadventurous. Except for Sunday, when I decided to go to a Holi event with some friends as a break before I had to suffer an entire two week of homework, stress, and exams. It was so fun, because I've never celebrated Holi before so I felt incredible adventurous. I went with one of my really close friends, and we weren’t sure what to expect but it was definitely an extremely memorable experience. 

There were so many people there just having fun together, regardless if they were Hindu or not. I remember all of the loud music, colored powder, and hordes of people dancing together. The most fun part was that people were throwing rang at each other, even if they didn’t know them. When we first got there I was full of excitement seeing all the happy people dancing and throwing the rang. You could just join in a conga line and as you snaked around the crowd people on the sides would pelt you, making you more colorful. The entire time I was really jubilant, because I was with my friend and saw some other friends there too. I was very thankful that I went. Though I will admit, having to clean up all of the rang off of me and my purse without staining anything in my room was a challenge.

For the worst parts of my week, it was mostly centered around school. Big surprise huh? I’ve felt really anxious entire week, because I know my next week is arguably going to be the worst week of my semester. I have a lot of responsibilities coming up and I’m having trouble prioritizing it all without forgetting to not overwork myself. As a result, I’ve felt pretty constricted, because there are big assignments I know that I need to do, but I also have exams I should study ahead of time. So finding this happy balance in doing all the work has been extremely troublesome. Obviously the only response my body and mind could do for these problems is to be incredibly unmotivated, which I have been. I’ve certainly taken naps when I needed to study instead, or have decided to peruse Reddit when I could’ve been doing homework. I just need to find that sense of urgency. Unfortunately I don’t have it right now, but I’ll get there eventually.

(Also if I have terrible grammar or sound redundant in this blog, I’m sorry. I could hear my roommate and her boyfriend making out in her bed behind me and I was just desperately trying to click on my keyboard keys to mask the sound of it)

#blog #bestandworst

[zoe-truong]

Saenz 1

(This would have been finished earlier were it not for colored powder and baby otter gifs)

To be honest I was a little disappointed this wasn’t a historical fiction where the actual philosopher and poet Aristotle and Dante go on an epic journey to discover the universe. That would have been incredible. Nevertheless, Saenz’s novel is an interesting read indeed.

Some of my favorite parts of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe are the unique perspectives from each of the characters, as well the difference in family dynamic. Aristotle and Dante seem to come from two different worlds. In Aristotle’s world, he had a father who he looked like, which in his opinion he “didn’t think that was such a great thing” (9) while his mother exuded a comfortable, loving personality for her dear son. However, both parents seem to put on certain expectations on him since his older brother set a troubling precedent. Oftentimes Aristotle laments when his father says things like, “It’s your life,” because Aristotle dismisses it by saying, “Like that was really true.” (23). I can relate to that sentiment a lot, because parents always give the illusion of freedom. They frame words as though we are the sole-owners of our actions, but it’s their way of making clear their expectations. With these sorts of problems, Aristotle eventually becomes jaded. He goes through life pensive, avoiding any certain interactions because to him “it was better to be bored by yourself than to be bored with someone else.” (17) Which is why it’s so interesting when Dante comes into his life. This other Mexican-American boy, who “wasn’t good at controlling all the laughter that lived inside of him” (29) came off as a stark contrast to Aristotle, but it seems he was the person he needed. He offered a welcoming aspect to the world that Aristotle never knew. While he was generally disproving of the rest of the boys he’s seen, Dante served as a refreshing outlier. Not to mention that his way of life was a world away from Aristotle’s. 

In Dante’s household, he has a pair of parents who actively love and talk to their son. Dante and his father have their own tradition, like a kiss on each other’s cheek, and find no trouble joking with each other. While his mother is more of an enigma, there is still a very encouraging atmosphere in this household. Since his father is an English professor, Dante is more educated on manner and literature. He enjoys reading novels and poems, which starkly contrasts Aristotle’s opposition to these sorts of readings. In spite of these differences, it’s clear that Dante’s presence in Aristotle’s life was necessary. The two boys complemented each other in their curiosity and imagination. In some ways, Dante also helps open up aspects of Aristotle’s world, because it only took a short encounter for this happy, methodical boy to make Aristotle’s father smile twice, which “was not a common occurrence. Dad was not big on smiling.” (33). Besides changing things in his home, Dante provokes Aristotle’s mind. He introduces him to new vocabulary, perspectives, and ways of thinking. The boy had a very complex way of thinking, and while Aristotle had the same vivid imagination, he lacked the environment that could cultivate his critical thinking. This is why I enjoy this book so much. In some ways, it seems Aristotle had more to learn from Dante than vice versa, but they learned from each other. Dante learned how to read and work with Aristotle, analyzing him and breaking down the preconceived notions that the latter held. Aristotle was introduced to someone who had a head on his shoulders but was warm and welcoming. There was still a lot for Aristotle to understand, but the mere fact that he can say, “I knew what it was like to be ashamed. Only Dante knew why. And I didn't,” (35) means that he was already on the path to understanding the world like his new friend does.The two encourage each other to see think creatively about the world. Aristotle says how he still does not understand his father, but with a push from Dante, it seems he is slowly breaking down the walls of his father’s history. Without meeting Dante, he wouldn’t be able to say that he “would solve the mystery of [his] father.” (37)

I also really enjoy the way that we see Aristotle’s character open up once he meets Dante. The boy used to keep to himself. He didn’t hang out with others and mostly kept to himself, people-watching. But it was interesting to see a parallel from the conversations he had with his mother and the ones he had with Dante. In the beginning it seems Aristotle is only comfortable with his mother, having simple yet normal banter with his mother. “ “Mom, it’s summer.” “Yes,” she said, “it is summer.” “ Different rules,” I said. “Different rules,” she repeated.” (10) This structure of conversation reveals itself in the two boys’ conversation. “ “That’s a weird thing to say,” I said. “Weird,” he said. “Weird,” I said.” (40) I think this is telling of the way that Aristotle easily accepts Dante into his life. He has already made a strong friend, one he can be around with the same comfort as his mother. A boy who just chapters before resented being a boy and being associated with other boys was finding a fast friend with another boy. The impact that some people have in our lives is incredible, and oftentimes we don’t even see it happening. We don’t expect someone to come into our life and settle like they belonged there the entire time. Not to mention that huge change these people can bring is something really exemplary about friends. You never know how easy it is to love someone. When they bring you out of a spiteful way of thought and make you feel so happy, you can’t help but admire the endless possibilities of your lives together. Even when Dante says how he’d “maybe change the world,” Aristotle knows to himself that he “believed him.” (43) It’s refreshing to have so much love and trust in someone, because you really begin to admire the things they have done for you life, even if it seemed impossible. 

#blog #saenz #aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe