9 Rules for Networking

This is a summary of Penelope Trunk's Cornell Johnson Business School Talk 

Rules for networking:

1. Know the rules (buy a book - work on what you're not good at)
2. Figure out what people want and work to give it to them (manage time so you can chat)
3. Know your weaknesses and accommodate (as an introvert, do one-on-ones)
4. Network with interesting people (be nice and interested, not interesting)
5. Believe that everyone has something interesting to teach you
6. Don't be afraid to contact people out of the blue.
7. Get a mentor (a wide range, including a white man and an Asian female) by asking interesting, relevant questions they can answer quickly (do this often and people will become invested in you)
8. Comment on relevant blogs (join the conversation) to find people
9. Rule of 3:
1. Look to your future
2. Networking is a lifestyle
3. "Work" is selling yourself

Ode to Books and Cases

I love bookcases almost as much as I love staircases, from a design point of view. (I love it even more when they combine.) I love when they are combined as well. I remember lining up my Babysitter's Club and Boxcar Children and American Girl series just so in the bookcase in the playroom I shared with my sister. These books went on the top shelf, where she couldn't reach. I couldn't really reach them either, unless I stood on the couch.

Later on, we got another bookcase, and lined it with an encyclopedia set a relative gave us, as well as a series on different countries of the world, with statistics for each. I loved browsing those books, and had to stack my young adult novels double, for lack of room. I wrote a report extolling the benefits of ebooks for a 7th grade class, but inside winced at the thought of giving up paper novels. I loved the smell of new ones from Barnes and Noble, and was familiar with the smell of fusty ones that I got from the school library. You cannot spend much time reading and loving books without also falling a little bit in love with their shape and feel.

As an ex-pat, however, it made a lot of sense for me to get a Kindle. It's difficult to find books in English in Taiwan. Plus, if I continue to travel, putting a Kindle in my purse makes a lot more sense than mailing boxes of books. Yet that is what my boyfriend is doing right now. We have a bookcase in our living room, completely full, filled with books that my boyfriend took with him from home, books that people who left Taiwan left with him, and books that I bought in a spending spree at a closing Borders. He thought he might leave the books here, but then he thought that he wanted our kids to be able to read the books in the future. One of his favorite memories is of browsing the bookcases in his grandparents' home.

From one level to another.

I have memories too, of looking at illustrated fairy tale books, encyclopedias filled with photographs and graphs, and a particularly good green thesaurus that my mother had. Because of Google, the internet is very specific. You can search and find exactly what you are looking for. The internet is also full of links that allow you to wikiwalk, but try as they might, web designers cannot replicate the experience of flipping through the pages of a good reference book.

When we went to Costco recently, I thought about how I wanted that for my children, especially when they are small. While technology is great, turning physical pages and looking at non-backlit screens is important for young children.  Books are also by definition curated. A bookcase, by definition, is limited, and a limited choice is often less stressful. Of course, my boyfriend and I probably will squirrel away many books on our ebooks and computers, and probably invest more in books on art and other visual media. My 2nd cousin once removed told me of how she and her brother encountered Frida Kahlo in one of her mother's books.

That is why, some time in the future, when my boyfriend and I have children, we will have real books, and bookcases. I dream of putting books in ascending order; the picture books on the bottom where my children can reach them, and books on "serious issues" on the top shelves where they can reach when they are older. I hope that they will love toddling over to the bottom rungs to pull out their favorite story, that one day they will stand on their toes to reach for a book that interests them, and I hope that they will always strain to reach ever higher.

Staircase of Light

Besides, I think that as Millenials start getting more money and grow out of our hipster phase, we may start investing in books the way we invest in Facebook pictures and twitter posts—as in, we will use them as identity markers. Sure, we may read bodice-ripper romances on our Kindles, but we’ll keep The Omnivore’s Dilemma on our reclaimed wood bookshelves. Also, the pendulum may swing the other way when the printing industry starts to promote "Real Books from Real Trees for Real People."

A Better Affirmative Action Analogy

I used to believe in meritocracy. As an Asian American, I was against affirmative action, at least race-based affirmative action. Class-based was okay. When confronted with analogies about our meritocratic race to the top, I was unmoved by descriptions of starving African Americans that had been chained up until right before the race. After all, it's been 150 years since slavery ended, though its effects are still felt today.

Therefore, I would like to present a better Affirmative Action Analogy.

One candidate (white) goes to participate in a foot race. His parents are not only supportive, but have made it clear, explicitly or implicitly, that he is expected to finish the race, if not place in the top 10. Why not? Everyone in his family has. All of his friends expect to. They have trained together every day since the 6th grade. His parents have paid private coaches to teach him and bought him expensive training sneakers and the best track shoes. The morning of the race, he is fed a power breakfast and driven to the starting line in an air-conditioned car. There is a celebratory lunch planned for after the race.

One candidate (black) goes to participate in a foot race. One of his parents, and some of his friends and family members are supportive. The other parent accuses him of trying to be better than his ancestors. Some of his friends make fun of him for participating. Others tell him there's no point. Studies show that he is unlikely to do as well as his white peers. Of those who are supportive, few have ever run before, and don't know how to support him. He has been training on his own. The morning of the race, he walks to the starting line because everyone is too busy or unsupportive to drive him there.

Does that mean that he should get some seconds shaved off of his score? I don't know. But I do think he should be under consideration for some coaching before the final race.

Don't Be This Guy Who Travels

There's this post that's going around, called "Date a Guy Who Travels." It contains some good values. Experiences are more valuable than things, but that's the rule for Millennials, not the exception. The curiosity for the world and knowledge of the poverty people have to go through all over the world are good qualities as well. Being flexible and adventurous, looking for possibilities and leaving the comfort zone are all qualities to be admired. There are some beautiful sentiments and beautiful pieces of writing in the post.

And yet it rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it because, as an ex-pat and sometime-traveler, I have known many travelers who embody many of the actions described in the post, if few of the ideals.

I have known guys who scoff at resorts when they have never been to a resort.

I have never known a guy who scoffs at vacations. Who does that?

I have known guys who dismiss travel guides because they, "probably know the guy who wrote them."

I have known guys who fail to realize that using a "travel guide" as a "reference" is redundant.

I have known many guys whose number of Facebook friends is negatively correlated with their number real friends.

I have known guys who have lived in Southeast Asia for years, but have never traveled in Malaysia. This has as much to do with the anti-drinking laws and Islamaphobia as it does with the relative expense.

I have known guys who are always announcing new things they've discovered in loud and enthusiastic tones, only to clam up if you'd already heard of them already or want specifics (in other words, have an actual conversation--which is why no one ever listens to their stories anymore).

I have known many guys who are too busy documenting an event for Facebook to actually experience it.

I have known guys who lived out of a backpack. I have known guys who claim to be backpacking when the only time they carry the backpack is to the taxi taking him away from the airport (on the way to the taxi to the airport, the hotel porter handles it).

I have known guys who pontificate about human rights and the squalor of developing countries, but are blind to the inequality and poverty on their own doorstep.

I have known ethnocentric guys who claim they're not because they've, "been to 43 countries."

I've known guys who have hiked up the tallest mountain in Taiwan, but were unaware that there are Chinese supermarkets in the U.S.

I have known guys who love being at home because their mom unpack their bags and do their laundry for them, but when they feel cramped, they leave again.

I have known many guys who marry a local girl they met on their travels, even though her English is poor and he never learns her native tongue. Conversely, I have known guys who only want to hook up with white girls when they travel.

I encountered multiple publications who know that artisanal, local handicrafts are the new status symbol. The new height of cool.

I have known guys who confuse instant-gratification with a happy life. Maybe it is, but they have never considered the meaningfulness of their lives.

I have known guys who live to build a persona for themselves through Facebook and twitter and their desktop photos

Traveling is great. Even though we live in a world where we can view satellite maps, documentaries, and other people's Facebook pictures that document life from all over the world, the world itself is still a book, and people who don't travel only read one page. It is a privilege now, as it was when St. Augustine first penned those words, but nothing replaces experiencing things first-hand. So travel, and enjoy talking and interacting with those who travel. But remember not all those who wander have lost their prejudices and pretensions.

Avenues: A Lesson in False Humility

Avenues is a pre-K-9 private school in New York City which purports to emphasize humility in its students; the school's mission statement is to craft students who are “humble about their gifts and generous of spirit." For $43,000 a year. All of my information is from the New York Times feature. I just had to post a response.

The Good

The school does seem to be an amazing opportunity for people who can afford it, at least at the lower levels.  Nancy Schulman, head of the Early Learning Center, understands why parents feel the need to ensure their children have organic, locally-sourced, gluten-free, culturally diverse snacks (it's a control thing). 4-year-olds get to view abstract art (an oddly appropriate time for them to learn about it) and Schulman, "brimming with excitement, explained how the subject matter and the field trip were perfect for the immersion classes. 'You can use the vocabulary in both languages,' she said, to learn about the art."

Yes, the kids will be brought up to be bilingual: English and Mandarin. The one spotlight on a student of Avenues is, "Jackson, [who] emerged in checkered pajamas from playing a “Star Wars” game on a Mac and broke into a number of songs in Mandarin, including “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.”He seems like a happy, well-adjusted kid.

The Bad

But how long will that last? Jackson's parents may seem both successful and reasonable, but how will they compete with the children of parents who demand the non-genetically modified, organic, locally-sourced, gluten-free, culturally-diverse raw foods snacks? Or parents that fret that their children can see, "the upper outlines of a homeless man’s backside en route to a playground." Worse yet, how will children cope when the school puts together a task force to investigate the safety of the school neighborhood in response? Humility indeed.

Of course, the homeless man incident is also referred to as "the buttcrack email," which goes to show that some people are laughing it off. I'm still concerned about the students when they get into high school though. Avenues does not have upperclassmen students yet, but they will. That's when the mental and physical health of students start to plummet; that's when AP courses, the SAT, and college applications hit you hard. Add that mix to the pressure cooker that is Avenues, and I'd hate to see the outcome. One of NYC's best child psychologists is on board. They're going to need him.

And let's face it. This school is charging $43,000 a year and is for profit. That may ensure premium service, but it's always a bit squishy when a school is for-profit. In reality, all schools are, but those who are openly so are at the mercy of parent and student demands. Also, humility?

The Ugly

Let's be honest. The best place for children of people who make enough to pay $43,000 a year in school fees to learn humility is the public school system. And not even the public school system in their neighborhood. They need to go to a low-income neighborhood public school. Or low-income neighborhood private school. But public school would be better.

Their parents would undoubtedly continue to be highly involved, and will model one or both of two things for their children. One is social activism. The other is failure. Either way, they will likely grow up to be more resilient, encounter real diversity, and grow up to be humbler human beings, if only because they will see how people without the benefits their families provide fare.

You know who would really benefit from the type of education Avenues provides? Children from low socioeconomic castes. On a purely practical level, I think they need Chinese more. Rich people can hire translators and language tutors, but the blue collar class workers may need Chinese to serve our future Chinese overlords. Or if not, as manufacturing is outsourced more and more to China, they may need to chase those jobs. Or they may need to interact with Chinese speakers or Chinese characters when they take inventory or transport goods from boat to shore. When I eat at Din Tai Fung in Arcadia, all of the dumpling makers I see through the picture window into the kitchen look Latino. Once, while grocery shopping in Hacienda Heights, I saw a Latino man speaking ebulliently with his co-workers in Chinese. I'm currently in Taiwan, teaching English to children of the rich and powerful. You know who, on average, has better spoken English? That's right, child vendors in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, etc.

Or course, there are many other reasons children from low socioeconomic classes would benefit from an education at Avenues. The point is that they will never get anything close to that. As one commenter, cmhughes, notes, what they get instead is ducking under "police tape cordoning off the street to get into the building. A man had been shot in the head the night before and died; the police crime scene investigation unit van was still there collecting evidence . . . one young child . . . is very afraid of dying."

The Black Box Theater

The NYT feature, written by Jenny Anderson, makes much of the black box theater on school campus in which parents were having a forum on whether or not their children's snacks were appropriately non-genetically modified, organic, locally-sourced, paleo-diet, gluten-free, culturally-diverse, raw food, non-processed, and high class. A black box theater is a low-cost theater that consists of a flat floor and black walls (resembling a black box). It was developed for experimental theater, and should be able to represent anyplace and anything. Like the school, it is a seemingly progressive and democratic space that has been appropriated by those who claim to feel more, care more, and are the de facto elite.

Become certifiably humble at Avenues!

The Commons: Allrecipes is not competing with your food blog

Whoever thought of the idea of emailing people a couple of weeks after they've purchased a book from Amazon to encourage us to write reviews: it works (at least for me). I wrote my first 3 reviews that way. If I were ambitious, I'd write more, and try and get on the Amazon Vine program, but I doubt that will happen. For one thing, I don't know if Amazon would allow me to review books that I didn't buy through them. Maybe I should post my reviews on Goodreads instead. Actually, what I should really do is write a thoughtful review of every book I read, post a preview on a public site, and then link to the rest on my blog.

Granted, I wouldn't shortchange anyone. All of the important stuff would be upfront, inverse pyramid style. But if anyone wanted more detail, they could click the link. I don't know if this is allowed.

But it should be. As long as the links are not spam, this would be a great way to get the best of public knowledge, while still allowing people to self-indulge express themselves on their own blogs. Think of Allrecipes.

Allrecipes is my go-to site if I'm looking for a dish. It has tons of recipes, and it doesn't make you look at 20 (albeit sometimes gorgeous) photos before you can look at the actual recipe. Plus it allows you to convert the serving size and move from US (British) measurements to metric. It even has nutritional information at the bottom! Most important, it has ratings and reviews. If I really like a recipe blog, then I'll trust that anything posted is delicious. But even that doesn't replace a comment that is liked by 50 and references at least 3 other comments regarding changing the amount of pepper to add. Sorry recipe bloggers, you lose.

That doesn't mean they should stop blogging their own recipes. It just means they should ALSO POST ON ALLRECIPES. If you think about it, it's great advertisement, if their dishes (and photos and writing) are really that good. Hey, if food companies can promote their products on allrecipes, I don't see why food bloggers can't promote their blogs. Wikipedia says they promote such practices. And go ahead and post on Food.com and Recipes.com and Food52 and Epicurious and all of those other social-networking food sites I don't even know of. (Actually, I don't think you can post on Epicurious, but they have an awesome name and it was the first recipe site I used regularly.)

Sidenote: My subtitle for this post is that Allrecipes is not competing with your food blog. I considered adding that it's not competing with your cookbook deal either, but maybe it's competing with your cookbook deal. But that's more the internet's fault, and you can't blame the internet for that, because people still get cookbooks published based on their food blogs on the internet all the time. I guess that goes to show that cookbooks aren't really about cooking. They're about personality and food porn.

A Plethora of Storylines: A Feast for Crows Review

I just finished A Feast for Crows, or at least I finished Arya and Sam's parts. I felt bad about skipping ahead, since I value residing cover to cover, but it's hard to leave a cliffhanger chapter when you know you're not going to find out what's going to happen for 12 more chapters.

What I found at the end though, was that my skipping around reflected George R. R. Martin's choice to split A Feast for Crows and A Dance of Dragons not by timeline, but by characters. I thought that his choice of who to put in which book a bit odd though. Characters are getting further and further apart, geographically, but I would have stuck to known entities in Affc, such as those in King's Landing, the Wall, Dorne, maybe Meereen. That would have left only those who were going on quests, but more importantly, those who all those at home are wondering about. That way Jaime and Cersei would continue to wonder about Tyrion, Jaime might wonder about Brienne, Jon would wonder about Sam, and we could all wonder about Arya, Brandon, and Sansa.

I'm not sure why the book was split the way it was. Maybe an editor went through it, marked all the ones that mentioned crows feasting, and said: those. I've never seen such heavy-handed references to the title before, though (maybe because of the references) I did get the idea of the decay left over now that the war is at a hiatus. I also think that if A Feast for Crows had followed Jon, that would have been an interesting play on how the Crows are doing.

Questing and Traveling

Quest (n.): a search or pursuit made in order to find or obtain something: a quest for uranium mines; a quest for knowledge (dictionary.com)

A quest is traditionally a journey, for one seldom gets what one wants by standing still, but nowadays quests take place in one place (usually New York City), whether for a job, for a partner, or for a good public school. The hero doesn't stand still; she (or he) runs around, often in circles. It's a rat race.

Maybe that is unfair. Stories don't only take place in the City Where Nothing Is Ever Good Enough The City that Never Sleeps. Stories can take place wholly in a small town, where the moving is of the souls, usually towards each other, whether in new love or healing old hurt.

Traditional quests though, are about moving and searching and encountering things stranger and greater than seen at home. What is the purpose of questing? What are we searching for when we travel? To see from different perspectives? Perhaps to find a different place, because one never belonged anyway. Either way, you always come back changed.

I am starting to like the quotes on Mindbloom, or at least my collection of them. Among quotes devoted to treating your body like a temple, eating well to live well, and treating the earth respectfully are quotes related to the usefulness of art, imagination, and books. I need more quotes about books. Books are a wonderful way to travel, not only through places and on quests, but through other people's eyes.

A sociology professor at my university once quoted a man who said, "I don't read books. I live them." I don't see why one can't do both. So that is what I am trying to do. I want to live a life worth writing about. I hope it won't be a tragedy, or even a drama. But I do hope it might be a travelogue. My AP Literature teacher confused the hell out of me by asking us (while we were studying Heart of Darkness) what the point of a travelogue was (and then never telling us). I have thought long and hard about what the point is. I still don't have the answer.

Instead, I'll just share a few of my favorite quotes about traveling.

For Perspective and Education
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine
"One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things." – Henry Miller
"Travel far enough, you meet yourself." – David Mitchell

For it's own Sake 
“It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.” – Ursula K. Leguin
“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
"To travel is to live." – Hans Christian Anderson

Miscellaneous: For Adventure, Renewal, and to Seek
"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware." – Anon
“You lose sight of things… and when you travel, everything balances out.” – Daranna Gidel
“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.” – Anais Nin
 

7 Rules for Writing in the Internet Age

Bora Zivkovic wrote an article posted in the Scientific American has some tips on how to break into science writing, but it has good advice on how to write, or get read, in the internet age. His original piece is a mine of useful links, but I'm posting a summary below for my own purposes.

1) Find a niche:
"Try to figure out your beat (or obsession) – what is it that excites you the most? Write about that. Try to find your own niche. Become a “go to” person on a particular topic, become an expert (or at least a temporary expert) on that topic" (18).

2) But show your writing versatility:
"Practice the usual journalistic forms – the feature, the interview, the brief news story with inverted pyramid. You will need to demonstrate that you are capable of writing in such forms and styles. But don’t limit yourself to traditional forms. Experiment with new forms. Explain animal behavior by letting animals have a dialogue. Explain science in the form of a fairy tale, Science Fiction or a poem. Try your hand at photography. Draw or paint or graph your own art, illustrations, infographics, cartoons and comic strips. Put some effort into making a video or animation every now and then. Record a podcast sometimes. Give data journalism a try. Try your hand at learning to code (but see). See what works for you" (17).

Also, see this prezi.


3) Don't worry about what's hip:
Blog with some regularity, even if it's just a few links, but you don't have to blog every day. Your readers will find you if they like you Make your blogs as long or as short as you want.

4) Practice:
Writing, of course, even if it's not something you publish, but also reading. How do writers accomplish their goals. Emulate them until you develop your own style. Pay attention to what editors change about your writing.

5) Get some training:
In addition to full-on master programs, there are summer workshops. You can also try an internship.
Educate yourself about writing ethics. Build credibility by citing your sources. Moderate your comments and be present to respond to comments occasionally.

6) Promote yourself:
Don't be afraid to write for free. Nominate yourself for awards. Submit to contests. Make a nice homepage with a simple URL that contains links to everywhere else you are present on the web.

"Your blog can serve as your homepage, or be a prominent and central part of your homepage. If not, make sure your homepage prominently links to your external blog. Make sure your homepage has a well written and accurate About/Bio page, contact information, link to your CV, and your Portfolio with links to all of your published work (perhaps your photography or videos or art on separate tabs). And of course, provide links to all the social media where you have accounts."

As for managing social media, Zivkovic recommends choosing two that work well for you (probably twitter, a professional facebook account, and google+ for the heck of it) and managing those, but also get accounts at other ones that can link back to your homepage.

7) Collaborate instead of compete:
Before, newspapers had to compete for readers. Now, there's so much competition that media outlets need to make allegiances with other media outlets with similar goals. After all, there's so much bad stuff to wade through, the best way to get your message out is to get other people to recommend it--if you recommend messages of similar caliber. This makes sense. Previous advice on how to get into blogging suggests that you comment on other blog posts and post a blog roll. It's also a good idea to join a group blog or do guest posts. Attend some events and network.

Mindbloom Review: Grow Your Productivity

I just did some floor exercises. Usually, I would continue surfing abyss of the internet, not even really reading anymore, but scanning, but I was smart enough to recognize the diminishing marginal returns. That, and I wanted to water my poor tree.

You see, in Mindbloom, every time you complete a task that you've set yourself, a little rain cloud hovers over your tree and your tree gets 5-10% more water. Of course, your tree also needs sunlight, which can be accomplished by you viewing your inspirational quotes and pictures once a day for a 10% sunshine boost. If that's not enough sunshine for you, you can also add inspiration to your inspiration roll.

I like Mindbloom. I came across in lifehacker. It's like a productivity game. When I tried to get one of my friends to try it though, she asked me if I was trying to ruin her life. That's because "productivity game" is an oxymoron, and the danger is that you can sucked into the game part instead of the productivity part. You can also hack your own game. It is fun though, like Sims for your real life (which means that it caters to the superego instead of the id). Why get satisfaction out of making your Sim wash the dishes when you can grow a virtual tree by actually washing the dishes?

My boyfriend would make fun of me for the above statement, but Mindbloom works fairly well for me. I'm not interested in culling through quotes, pictures, and music to find the perfect montage of inspiration (though there are some nice quotes in there). This can actually be a downside, because my tree is skewed in terms of its water/sunshine ratio. I really just want to water my tree though. I get sad when its leaves turn brown (or red), even though I swear I've been more consistent about my goals than usual (maybe I'm just setting the bar too high?).

That's one of the nice things about Mindbloom. It has a built-in calendar so you can go back and check how consistent you've been completing your tasks. It can aid you in your quest to form a habit (research shows it takes 21 days).

Mindbloom can also replace your to-do list, as long as your to-do list has a lot of repetition built into it. You probably need a separate to-do list  though, for more specific tasks or tasks that you'll only do once (unless you just want an excuse to add it and water your tree).

Mindbloom is also tapped into the most motivating factor of productivity: the observation effect.

Okay, there has to be a better name for it. But people do tend to perform better when they know they are being watched. More importantly, if you have a companion who pushes you keep up a habit (as opposed to agreeing with you that it's better to sleep in than go jogging), or even push you to do more, you are more likely to succeed. Plus, it might just look bad to have a dead tree in your backyard. Mindbloom also allows you to send rain or sunshine to your friends if you've accrued enough seeds, which serves as a kind of virtual encouragement.

So that's the good. Now for the bad. Like I said, I don't like the inspiration gathering aspect of it. It might help some people, but it doesn't do much for me. Plus, adding new inspiration is a potential time-waster. My other critique is that Mindbloom doesn't have a button to let you water your tree more than once a day for the same task. For example, when I finish writing this blog post, I get to water my tree again. But what if I write two blog posts? If I work on Chinese for 10 minutes (one of my set tasks), I get to water my tree. But what if I work on it for 3 hours (which is really what I should be doing)? Of course, I can get around that by setting another task, like "write two blog posts," but then my tree might suffer because I never write two blog posts in one day, and the extra task makes my leaves bigger, which means that it needs more water.

Hopefully Mindbloom can add a feature that allows for watering more than once for a task a day soon. If not, it's not a big deal. My main issue is that there is no real ipad/iphone app for Mindbloom. They have a version called Bloom, but it doesn't sync up with Mindbloom on your computer, and it seems designed to get money out of you. I don't grudge them that much for it. After all, the company has to make money somehow. Unfortunately for them I won't be participating in it.

Now, if you'll excuse me. I'm going to water my tree.

Why Teach (Private School)?

Why teach at all? Why teach when it takes so much time and pays so little money (even taking into account the two months off)? Why teach when the people you manage are held hostage there, not by income, but by law? Why teach when your students may have little to no respect for you or your profession?

There are some standard answers. To pass on knowledge. To engage intellect. To challenge. To inspire. As if those things were exclusive to teaching.

If you teach at certain public schools, you can say even more. To ensure a basic human right. To mitigate the existence of institutional barriers. To provide a safe and nurturing environment.

But why teach at the private school level? Sure, the money's better, but not that good (it's still teaching). There isn't necessarily a guarantee of a better home environment, though the behavioral issues will be different. A higher standard of intellect is expected, usually (or a higher rate of grade inflation).

Why teach with the knowledge that some students hate your guts, simply because you've done your job?

There are ways to console yourself. You can engage in some form of mudslinging. You can say that you're better than them, and say that they'll get theirs, when they get into college or the real world and can't perform. Unfortunately, poetic justice is just that--poetic. It is symptomatic of literature not because it reflects real life, but real desires. The truth is, a mediocre or failing student of mine will live a more comfortable life than me, simply because he or she was born into a family with more money than mine (just look at George W. Bush).

It's not just the greater opportunity my students were born with that will aid them, it is also their willingness to take what they don't deserve. Despite Aristotle's attempted conflation of goodness and happiness, it just isn't true. Nice guys often do finish last. It seems so unfair that while I am trapped in a cage of my insecurities, my own harshest judge, they are in a bubble sustained by the idea that they can do no wrong.

But happiness is overrated. When I was studying Aristotle in college, I did take issue with happiness being the highest possible good. I tried to think of an alternative, but the best my aspiring intellectual self could come up with was wisdom. I wasn't sure why wisdom should be a higher goal than happiness, but it appealed more to me. It was something I would be willing to suffer for. After all, isn't ignorance bliss? Wasn't I actually toiling through the readings for class while others partied not just so I could get better grades and a better job, but because I wanted to understand the material? (The truth is I enjoyed most of the readings, so it was still about my personal happiness.)

Happiness studies have really flourished. I, too, am suspect to the craze. I want to be happy (or happier, or happy on a more consistent basis). A lot of happiness research was covered by Penelope Trunk, who ultimately decided that happiness lost to being interesting. So maybe I am teaching not because it will lead to a more comfortable, stress-free life, but because it is intellectually stimulating and creatively challenging. That's a good argument. Except that I could get a job that is intellectually stimulating, creatively challenging, pays more, and makes a more perceivable impact.

Emily Esfahani Smith really hit on it.* We don't do things to be happy. We procrastinate to be happy. We go on vacation to be happy. But happiness is not most people's primary motivation. We all want fulfillment, which for most humans means meaning. Meaning for a a large section of the population (I hope) is integrity, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

Public school teachers go to work hoping to catch kids, to raise them up. Sometimes all they can be is a stepping stone. Private school teachers go to work to try and prevent kids from being corrupt. Maybe the best we can hope for is to be a stumbling block on their way to asshattery.

*or her source, Roy Baumeister, did

How to Cultivate Style and Substance

Penelope Trunk has an interesting post about why the publishing industry sucks. I have to admit I merely skimmed it. Though her writing, informal, assured, and confessional, is mostly entertaining, I wasn't in the mood for her digressive lists today. The main point of the blog post is that the publishing industry has no idea how to promote books, mostly because Amazon is withholding their demographic information of book buyers. Also, again, publishing is dying. The exception may be fiction writing, of which the acceptance by a publishing house is still considered a measure of quality.

This may change though. After all, although Shades of Grey, a self-published novel, is almost universally derided as an example of bad writing, it's still a best seller. In addition, the Twilight series, published by Little, Brown and Company (of the Little Brown Handbook?!) is also a best seller, a major movie franchise, and also generally derided as an example of bad writing (among other things). Therefore, publishing companies may be willing to publish more and more best-selling trash in order to stay afloat.

My boyfriend wrote a post about why writing is hard. Writing well is difficult and writing something worth saying is almost impossible. I think those are two separate things though. Writing well is about style and is a skill that must be honed. Writing something worth saying is about content and critical thinking. I'm not sure where this comes from. Probably from one of the following a) inspiration b) a unique perspective of the world c) research d) experience e) all of the above.

When teaching writing, we do try to have students come up with unique theses and then make them support them with logical and convincing topic sentences, concrete detail, and commentary. The other half is to get them to write well.

Unfortunately, these two things do not always overlap. I am fond of reading The New York Times, but I often read the "Style" section, where articles with subjects as insipid as New York socialites holding viewing parties of Downton  Abbey (sometimes dressing up in tiaras). I have to admit, though, that New York Times articles are invariably well-written.

On the other hand, I also like reading Psychology Today. The articles are not always brimming with content, but the main problem is the inconsistency of the writing. Some articles are very short; so much so that they can hardly be called articles. Some articles are overly long; one article was 3 webpages long, getting to its main point in the last page. The extra padding did nothing to illuminate the idea. Some articles are weighed down by gimmicky terms in a bid for unique branding. They are all written by people with advanced degrees in psychology. Many of them spend their careers in pursuit of unique ideas in psychology.

Here's the rub. To be a skilled writer, according to a book by Malcolm Gladwell, one of those writers who has mastered both being skilled and being interesting, one should have 10,000 hours of practice. Writers probably develop that skill by writing for hours a day, sometimes about insipid subjects. To be an interesting idea, you need to . . . do things other than write.

After all, it is the job of lots of PhDs in the world to think of interesting ideas, which they then try to prove them true (at least some of the time). Most of them then proceed to write badly* about them because they were too busy researching to develop writing skills.

Let's just say that having something worth saying has to do with creativity, something as ambiguous as inspiration. People have endeavored to study it though. Research implies that creativity comes from having time to think alone, but also exposure to different opinions. Supposedly, one discovers one's unique perspective of the world through opposition to others. Ways to discover this opposition could occur through research or experience.

In which case the best way to write something with both style and substance would be to read a lot of well-written texts on a variety of interesting ideas, or at the very least a lot of texts on a variety of interesting ideas, at least some of which are well-written. We can then do what Buzzfeed does and just take popular ideas and then rewrite them in a more coherent, more developed way. But the most important thing is to read; read like we breathe.

*as stated by my social psychology professor, Matthew Lieberman.

Overentertaining Engagement

American students are spoiled.* There, I said it. This New Yorker article assumes that people already know that American children are spoiled, its thesis mostly couched in the "why?" But if American children are spoiled, doesn't if follow that American students are spoiled as well?

*While I am focusing on American students, this does not necessarily mean other nations' students are not spoiled.

To clarify, spoiled doesn't necessarily mean well-equipped. Far from it. More often children/students are spoiled in direct proportion to how neglected they are, not the other way around. You can picture the child with the latest DSL, PSP, X-box, what have you, but no discipline, but also picture students whose classes have been dumbed down to the point of having coloring for homework in high school. Of course students won't perform such token homework; it doesn't teach them anything. Both of these children are lacking in responsibility, giving them the impression that they cannot handle responsibility.

I think there's too much emphasis on teachers being "engaging." If engaging means meaningful and interactive, then school should of course be engaging. However, more often than not engaging means entertaining. The best teachers would be entertaining as well as engaging, but even they can't keep it up 100% of the time. Not even academy award winning movies entertain everyone all the time.

I and many of my friends were(are) good students, which means we learned the material regardless of the teacher. I'm not one of those people who claims to have learned nothing in college, in part because I actually put effort into my classes and found them engaging. Chicken or egg?

But I was a terrible student in Chinese school. The worst. While I had one of the highest reading levels and was doing extra math from a textbook a grade level up in regular elementary, in Chinese school I was one of those kids who stares at the wall the entire time, doesn't do homework, and writes nothing on tests. Chinese school was volunteer run by parents, not teachers, so . . . they weren't necessarily the best teachers. I certainly don't remember any of them being engaging. Would I have paid attention if my teachers had been? Maybe, but what would have helped me a lot more was if I had had adequate training and materials.

I was not properly placed at Chinese school. All of my classmates knew bo po mo fo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) ABCs of Mandarin Chinese. To this day I still don't know this system. Therefore, unless I memorized what sound went with each character in class, I had no reference. My spoken Chinese was also subpar, and we were using Taiwanese elementary textbooks (most 2nd language Chinese textbooks are designed for adults; Chinese elementary textbooks would use simplified characters). That mean there was no English. At all. Which meant that even if I had known the sound for the character, I wouldn't have known the meaning.

These obstacles wouldn't necessarily have made it impossible for me to learn Chinese, but they did decrease my motivation to the point that I made it impossible. Engaging should mean meaningful, not necessarily fun.

No offense to Sir Ken Robinson or anything, but sometimes you need a factory-type system. While unfortunately schools are becoming more and more factory-like, often what you get in schools is a system that fosters neither creativity nor competence (as in literacy). Prepping for standardized tests is definitely not creative, but neither is it meaningful. Students are not taught self-discipline for the sake of accomplishment; they're taught to eat up SAT classes and their tips and tricks to game the system (I kid you know; my students take an SAT class that for the essay portion teaches them to write large, fill up the page, and even tells them how many lines per paragraph to write. Then my students talk about how they like to end a paragraph at the beginning of a line, so that it looks like the essay takes up more space--see?).

I have issues with unschooling, a movement that has hijacked Ken Robinson the way Fundamentalist Christians have hijacked Jesus. They propose no schooling at all, focusing instead on pure, self-directed exploration.

Bad idea. There's a time and place for unschooling. It's not during school time. It's probably not during dinner time or chore time or bedtime either (but I'm not focusing on the degradation of children in general). Just because a system has swung too far to one side doesn't mean the solution is to swing to the other extreme. Ken Robinson said that creativity is as important as literacy, not that it should supersede it. Students need to take some time to know something so that they can deconstruct and reconstruct it. And hey, MATCH schools and Asian test scores agree with me (please see Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell).

MATCH schools serves underpriviledged kids. Un/Homeschooling is only viable for the middle class and above. Either one parent has to take time off work or the family needs money for a private teacher or the family has to pay for multiple non-public school classes. Let's face it. People who attempt this have college degrees. Their children will have the cultural capital to go to college. Children of well-heeled parents come back to school in the fall knowing more than they did in the spring. Good for them and their summer camps and private tutoring. Low-income children, however, come back to school in the fall knowing less than they did in the spring, because they spent a majority of their summer in front of the TV.

MATCH works as a socioeconomic equalizer partially by keeping kids in school longer by extending the school day, the school week, and the school year. Time spent learning is as important as method of learning. I would like to digress for a moment now and argue that schools dramatically reduce summer vacation (who can afford the childcare, anyway?). That way, we can teach slower, but better. We can even reduce homework, the way Race to Nowhere wants us to. This would also benefit teachers because 1) We wouldn't be called lazy for not working in the summer (although my boyfriend has scheduled 5 hours a day for prepping for his classes) 2) we can work less overtime doing prepping and grading. After all, a larger than 40 hour workweek has increasingly diminishing returns on productivity.

Asian National children really outperform American children, including that 2% of Asian Americans, at math. This has nothing to do with genetics and everything with culture. There is a direct correlation between percentage of test finished and percentage score, which means that Asian children don't necessarily get a bigger percentage of math questions right; they just do more of the test. Of course, it's unreasonable for ask a 3rd grader to sit and take a test for several hours. Unless you're Asian. In Taiwan, these kids start schooling at age 2, including for English. When they're old enough to go to real school, they go to class after class.

This is not necessarily a good thing. The pressure for kids in Asia (or at least in Taiwan) is too high. For one thing, there is rampant cheating (i.e. copying of homework) in schools. For another thing, there isn't much room for creativity, discovery, and experimentation. Americans don't want to be like Asia. We are arguably more creative and definitely more independent. That means we're more likely to be entrepreneurial. However, if you do work at a start-up, you have to be prepared to work a lot. Mature a couple of hours at a time for a 3rd grader to an adult standard.

Furthermore, all of this work? It ain't gonna be all fun and games, even if you love the field and the work is really meaningful to you (as it should be), it won't necessarily be entertaining all the time. It may not even be engaging. There's always the red tape bureaucracy and persnickety details you don't have the money to pay someone else to take care of.

For example, my Chinese is now good enough that I'm learning fairly complex Chinese characters (i.e. 幫, which means help). My teacher has taught us all sorts of semantic tricks using the radicals (those individual shapes) involving sound and meaning. It helps a lot (I remember the previous character by remembering that if they are two dirt clods on a white cloth, even an inch would be a lot of help).

However, at the end of the day, the only way to know 1500+ characters instantly (2000 is barely enough to read a newspaper; 8000 characters is considered fluent) is to write them over and over again, repeating the word whilst writing it. So I don't mind if my students don't find their homework interesting. It's not supposed to be. It's practice, which by definition is repetition. That doesn't mean it's not engaging.

Writing goals

Writing Prompt #4: Acknowledge that writing is hard. Write it down. Then write about how
you are going to make writing happen. How will you find the balance in
yourself to combine willpower with relaxation, stubbornness with joy?
Write about how you've struck this balance in the past with writing, a
sport, playing an instrument--anything you've done.

Writing is hard (even if it's typing). I am going to make writing happen by
1) following these writing prompts
2) jotting down whatever ideas come into my head
3) taking the time to revisit and actually write about ideas I've written down, even if I'm not inspired by them at the moment.
4) setting aside time every morning to write

Willpower means sitting down to write every day. I might need more willpower to wake up at an earlier time that makes this feasible. Relaxation can be achieved by allowing myself to stop writing after an hour if I'm stuck, but also allowing me to continue writing until I am done. I should also get up at least once an hour to walk around (sitting down for 2 hours hurts). I'm seldom stubborn about writing, except when I should really be doing something else. I suppose I'm stubborn about changing my writing sometimes. I can cut stuff out of my writing if I really think it will make it better though. I like to interject extraneous anecdotes and interesting digressions, but if I can develop them into separate pieces of writing, then I'll feel better about letting them go. Joy is when I'm inspired and have the time to write.

I don't tink I've ever struck a balance with writing. I tend to write in spurts, whether it be a 3 hour blog post when I should be doing something else, or an all-nighter for a paper. I have to admit, I do sometimes let ideas marinate in my head for awhile before recording them; a product of having nothing to do on long commutes. My approach to homework in general wasn't that great: put it off until completion is only barely assured at a reasonable hour, then work on it with a perfectionist's mindset until done. Sometimes I would also do homework in class instead of socializing with classmates or giving my teacher my full attention.

The closest I've gotten to having a balance was with karate.  Karate was a class, so it was always at 7:30pm twice a week, and I would go to extra practice Sunday morning. Classes would last at least an hour. Sunday practice would last at least two hours. You could practice more if you arrived early or left late. There were many days that I didn't feel like going to karate, but I would force myself, telling myself that if I skipped one day, I would skip another, or that I'd gone to karate in worse condition, or that it was just an hour, and that I would feel better afterwards. I always did, although once or twice I had to sit down from anemia. Most of the time though, one would walk out of the dojo with a sense of accomplishment, relaxation, joy, and a rush of endorphins.

Writing is an art, but I find most artists far too indulgent with themselves; always seeking inspiration for their poetry or painting. I think a better model would be a classical musician. Classical musicians practice several hours a day. They are critical enough of themselves so that they find something to practice, something meaningful to work on and improve. They may not be inspired all of the time, but the hone their skills every day. All of that private practice and group rehearsal for a couple of performances.

I was not always a diligent piano player, but when I was I was methodical about my practice. I started out with nearly 20 minutes of just scales, as my teacher wanted. Then I would practice each piece I had for a certain amount of time. The first couple of times as a warm-up. Then I would choose something such as tempo or expression. If I had a problem spot, I would practice that until it was right. At these points, my daily practice time would exceed an hour and still not seem adequate.

If I apply that to writing, then I need to hone my skills every day. I need to set goals for how I want my writing to become. To do that, I get to spend more time reading to figure out what I admire in writing, even if it doesn't necessarily apply to mine. To practice my basics, I could write poetry, emphasizing rhyme or rhythm. I could do vignettes for plot or mood. For longer pieces, I would tackle any problem spots. Every once in awhile, I can work on something I truly find inspiring. If I do that enough times, maybe something will stick.

Writing goals:

1. Apt alliteration, perhaps assonance and consonance
2. Figure out if I want to keep writing sentence fragments. Or use dashes.
3. Figure out what makes a good plot. Try to write more plot-oriented fiction.
4. Mood sketches
5. Character sketches
6. Write a piece from 3 different points of view
7. Increase humor with imaginative analogies and appropriate randomness (figure out when my writing is funny and why)

Compliments and Creativity (and Analysis and Social Skills)

After an extended writing hiatus, boyfriend and I have decided to supplement our semi-long distance communication this summer with writing prompts. After all, we both have authorly aspirations. If we write for 3 hours a day for the next 10 years, we might actually get somewhere (I don't have time to write for 3 hours a day, but I'm guessing I've written a fair amount in the last two decades of my life--after I figured out how to write, I mean). I won't necessariliy be following the prompt directly. The goal is to get us to write more, even if we just end up sitting at the computer for an hour a day (in my case, I'll be reading articles).

Writing prompt: List positive messages you have received about your writing or other creative pursuits. What memories do you have of feeling satisfied or pleased with how a piece of writing came out?

In reverse chronological order:
"Your writing, it flows like water."
"You are an excellent writer."
"You're really articulate."
"You are very smart."
"You received almost no negative comments in your evaluations, which is unusual for a new tutor."
"You used to be really crative."

Well, that was a short list, and I'm not sure if tutoring is a creative pursuit. Nevertheless, I will try and go through them.

"Your writing, it flows like water." and "You are an excellent writer."The first comment comes from one of my best friends, the second from my special education professor on a paper I wrote for class. Number of drafts? 1. If I can get started on a topic, words pretty much do flow out like water, sometimes superfluously. The second comment was not necessarily surprising (as an English major, I did my share of writing essays, and invariably got good grades), but it was ego-enhancing in its emphatic nature. Ultimately though, these compliments are non-constructive. I know my writing flows (most of the time). I know I'm a good writer. Other than simultaneously smoothing my ego (like you smooth a cat's fur) and making me uncomfortable*, they don't serve much purpose.

*I suppose my hesitancy to accept compliments graciously comes from my Chinese background. I was told recently in class that the default answer to any compliment is "nali, nali," which basically means, "that's not true" or "you're exaggerating." This is the default answer even when it's hard to argue with the compliment, such as "you are tall." Technically it's an opinion, but it's hard to argue with someone four inches shorter than you. I guess you're supposed to say stuff life, "I'm average for an American," or, "I have friends even taller than I am!"

I don't remember much constructive criticism from college either. It was more like, "You could have done better on this and this and that, but overall good job!" Maybe I don't remember the comments because they were either telling me things I already knew (yeah, but I didn't know how to fix it) or because I knew my writing, how it worked, and how to produce it. The process mostly got me As, so why change it?

What memories do you have of feeling satisfied or pleased with how a piece of writing came out?

Because the best paper I ever wrote did not come from the default process of start-the-paper-the-night-before-it's-due-and-work-on-it-all-night, but from a thorough rereading of the book (The Bell Jar) where I took note of all the parts which would later form my concrete detail. I didn't even have a clear thesis, I was rereading the book to form my thesis, and when it came it seemed to coalesce organically. Granted, though I started writing this paper a bit earlier than the others (maybe two days before it was due), a lot of the work came from before I even started free-typing, when I was bookmarking passages. This is why I like to tell my students that 80% of the work of the paper is coming up with a (good) thesis.

"You're really articulate." and "You are very smart."
Both of these stem from my Asian-American literature class. A class I was actually effortlessly interested in. The first was from a classmate (I was honestly and graciously able to say, "Oh, so are you" in return) and from my professor, who was encouraging me to go to graduate school.

The Secret Life of Pronouns talks about how students who write with an analytical style tend to get better grades in college. It's uncertain whether this is because analytical people are smarter or because American universities prefer analytical skills. Probably the latter. Sir Ken Robinson talks about how schools emphasize analysis (along with memorization), but not creativity/divergent thinking. Hey, why analyze things when you could be creating new things? Lastly, in Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talked about a genius who couldn't graduate from college. He had analytical skills up the wazoo, but he didn't have the requisite social skills.

I'm perhaps overly analytical. My boyfriend says I analyze everything, but can't observe what's in front of me. This is true. When we're walking around, instead of paying attention to where I'm going for future reference (luckily my following skills are well-honed), I'm asking my boyfriend if his gay friend who sometimes talks in a "fem-y" way started talking that way before or after he discovered he was gay and joined the gay community, because if so then maybe it was more of a product of social transference rather than an inherent genetic trait. His response was, "I don't know. I wasn't paying attention. I guess I should have been, but I didn't know that in the future I would be with someone who analyzes everything."

In conclusion, being analytical isn't everything, although it does get me compliments and was probably a key factor in getting good grades for my English papers. After all, English majors don't usually write their own literature; they just analyze the bejezus out of existing literature. (Although I do believe you should be able to read well before you can write well.)

"You received almost no negative comments, which is unusual for a new tutor."
I was a pretty damn good tutor. When I first started teaching, I lamented that my tutoring skills apparently did not apply at all to my teaching skills, but in a way they did. Skills tutors need are listening skills, questioning skills, and the patience to let the tutee figure out what he or she thinks oneself. Though lecture skills, lesson-planning skills, and classroom management are essential for a teacher, tutor skills are what I believe really foster critical thinking (if you can somehow squeeze it into a class of 25+ students).

I am not a socially skilled person. I used to say I was socially retarded. Now I say I'm borderline Asperger's (or on the spectrum, as my boyfriend likes to say). Also, I am highly introverted. After reading Susan Cain's introvert manifesto Quiet, I'm more accepting of myself, and am glad to know that there are others out there who need time to themselves (because they get overwhelmed by too much socializing) and don't like small talk. I guess introverts are kind of Aspergey.

Introverts are branded as shy and, let's face it, socially unskilled. The socially skilled introverts are the ones who can (and are willing to) fake it. I was always told I was quiet as a child, but only my child-disliking grandmother who lived in Taiwan liked me for it.

However, Susan Cain's arguement is that introverts are skilled at certain tasks. They tend to be more thoughtful (they spend time by themselves thinking), are more detail-oriented (on the things they pay attention to), tend to be more conscientious, and are better listeners. I kind of think of teaching as an extrovert's job. One has to be more or less constantly interacting with a large group of people; favorite teachers tend to be ones who can be funny and "perform" for their class. Tutoring taps into more introvert skills. Those skills seem to be coming into vogue now that there is more emphasis on guides on the sides instead of sages on stages and student-centered, constructivist teaching. (Ironically, introvert students like sage-on-stage, lecture-type teaching, probably because the focus is not on them.)

I guess my point is that I am socially skilled in certain contexts, such as tutoring. And in traditional Asian communities.

My other point is that the introvert way of brainstorming seems to be more effective. A new yorker article denouncing groupthink argued that better and more bountiful ideas came when people first brainstormed alone. This makes sense to me, although perhaps it's introverts who brainstorm best alone, while extroverts may like the competition (even though it's not supposed to be a competition) of groupthink. Let's move on to creativity then.

"You used to be really creative."
Said my sister, lamenting my lost creativity the way my mother laments how my academic success peaked in middle school (I got Bs in high school). I guess Ken Robinson is onto something. When I was younger and my homework was scanty, before the age of the internet, I spent a lot of time with my sister building forts, planning impromptu luaus, starting plays, and even choreographing a dance celebrating the Fourth of July (Happy Birthday, U.S.A.). Then I started going to sleep after midnight because of homework and procrastination.

Actually, I think procrastination is very important to creativity. When I have nothing to do, I do nothing. When I have a ton of stuff to do, such as clean my apartment, I decide to make homemade mayonnaise, homemade yogurt, and clothes made out of old sheets (sorry boyfriend). Of course if I get too busy (with actual deadlines), then I buckle down and do only work. Just as a recent article in Salon talked about how coffee houses are great for creativity because of a moderate amount of noise (whether or not that amount of noise corresponds to the music coming out of my ipod remains to be discovered), I believe a moderate amount of business is essential to productivity, even creative productivity. If I have nothing to do, I want to do nothing. I may be restless, but my yearnings for activity are vague and inchoate. Give me something to do, and that inchoatness quickly takes shape. Give me something to do and limitations on my movement and I can find even more ways to waste my time.

There are two factors to creativity. First: having time and space to yourself. Second: why is everyone hating on Starbuck's green tea with red bean drink? It's not appealing to me either, but it's a fairly traditional and very popular flavor combination in Taiwan, so Starbucks is not being stupid; it's catering to the local population. In other words, random interactions with other people or ideas, especially if the differ from your own. That's why in Pixar (and many other companies now as well), you have your own desk, but you can wander off to play fuseball or ping pong or get coffee. Of course, I hate water-cooler talk, and don't like people wandering into my classroom to talk about the weather, but a 30-second interaction can get you off track enough to gain a new perspective (not that this is useful if you're just collating data, which is a big part of teaching).

Now I'm going to go off topic and talk about Google (and it wasn't even Google who really started it) and 20% time. I did a final project for one of my educational classes where I designed a school where students and teachers had 20% time (Fridays were devoted to whatever they wanted to work on). It seemed like a good compromise between the need for some factory-type structures and unschooling. Another article in the Salon wants to bring back the 40 hour work week, because overtime doesn't really increase productivity (I mean, you produce more, but at a far less efficient rate). For intellectual jobs, supposedly the sweet spot of productivity is even lower than 40 hours a week.

All of this seems like it would keep workers happy, healthy, wealthy (or at least employed), and wise--especially in terms of creativity.

Minimal Beauty to the Max: No Makeup, No Shampoo

I am lazy. Sure, there are plenty of reasons not to buy into the beauty industry. I'd be accepting society's impositions on women. I'd be running a rat race by clogging up my skin in an effort to rejuvenate it. I'd spend loads of money (apparently cosmetics are like food--they have an expiration date). The real reason I don't use makeup though, is that I'm too low maintenance. It takes too much time and effort.

The biased but interesting Penelope Trunk has a post about how as an unhappy maximalist she knows the difference between $20 and $70 eyebrows. She also says that minimalism is lifestyle porn, which is true on some level. I am not a maximalist like her, so I don't think I'll have a problem with minimalism. I can do the 100 things challenge (if I ever get around to cataloguing how many things I have), but sometimes minimalism arises by accident. My make-up collection consists of three items: a chapstick and two orange lipsticks that I got for free at a club promotion (one of them was my roommates', but she left it at the apartment). I have no problem getting rid of two of these things (it's not a good color for me). Let's review the horrible things I could be doing to my face, and then I'll talk about my hair.

Eyes

Liquid eyeliner is not my friend, unlike what some websites say. My eyeliner disappears when I open my eyes. Ditto mascara. Actually, you can still see my lower eyeliner, but . . . I just don't like how it makes me look different. I don't look bad necessarily--I just don't look like me. I suspect it may make my eyes look smaller.

Geisha Asobi's fake fake eyelashes

Beauty appliance or surgical tool?

Speaking of eyelashes, which apparently even white girls curl with what looks like a torture device, there are two weird things that Asian women tend to do to their eyes. One is to apply fake eyelashes. That's like wearing a wig, and it's deceptive. Also, I don't want to look like a doll or spend money on it. Mostly though, I don't want to stick something to my eyelids. That's invasive.

The other thing is to cement or get eye surgery to get double eyelids. I only have double eyelids when my eyes are super puffy from crying or allergies. I do think they look pretty, but . . . why spend the 10 minutes required to pin and stick your eyes into a shape they are not? As for surgery to permanently change how you naturally look when you are not deformed . . . I'm not into it.

Lastly, I suppose I should talk about eyeshadow. I'm actually okay with eyeshadow, if I ever apply makeup at all. It's not trying to lie. It's deliberately performative. No one has green or blue or pink or silver eyelids. No one even has slightly darker beige eyelids. Eyeshadow is honestly decorative.

  
Eyebrows

Plucking? Plucking. Maybe. I have to confess that I read recently in its entirety an inane article in the New York Times about how bushy, unkempt eyebrows are back. I was like, great, so I don't have to do anything. I mentioned this to one of my friends, and she was like, "Why do you care, either way?" It was true. I didn't care, because I wouldn't change my behavior either way. It's just in one instance I would be unintentionally trendy. In the meantime, people will be going out of their way to make their eyebrows bushier and intentionally unintentionally unkempt.

Sometimes I feel like I should pluck my stray eyebrow hairs though. Sometimes.

Nose and Cheekbones (shading)

I don't really like my nose. I think it's my worst feature. When I was younger I used to compare it to a pig's, but Penelope's cute, right? When I talk to my boyfriend about the insipidness of makeup, he says that Asian women don't need makeup anyway because they have high cheekbones and small noses. I was like, really? Maybe you do have yellow fever, because most of the time it seems like Asian women are being told to look white. So I'm not sure. I don't peruse enough fashion magazines, and even when I do I don't look at the pictures or advertisements.

Mustache

Some women bleach these.


Lips

I am trying to use more chapstick. After all, chapped lips are gross, and they feel gross. When I go out I apply a lipstick or gloss, look at how unnatural my lips look, and then go out. And then I worry about carrying my lipstick and reapplying it after eating.


Armpit hair

I pluck this. It's the one thing I consider unbecoming. I mean, a little bit of hair is okay. It doesn't have to be spotless, but I have long black hairs coming out of there. I try to pluck out the thicker ones. I used to wax, but then I ran out of good wax and couldn't find any more. Maybe I'll go out and look again.


Pubic hair

I'm very biased against trimming this because of the scene "Hair" from the Vagina Monologues. I have to admit though, when I was first growing it out, I didn't like how thick it was and trimmed it with a pair of nail clippers. Then it grew back and I gave up. I sometimes consider waxing it for the experience. I consider keeping it trimmed so my boyfriend can go down on me without fear of getting hair in his mouth. But he would go down on me anyway.


Legs

I'm Asian, and my mom's legs are hairless. I didn't realize white women had legs as hairy as white men. So I guess it makes sense that they wax and shave. I'm lucky in that my long black hairs are sparse enough and thin enough that they're not too noticeable. Thank goodness, because that would be a huge upkeep.


Head Hair

Other people persist in the no poo saga

I once embarked on a journey to not use shampoo, mostly because I was bored. I did it for several months, got my combs gross, hated the general greasy feeling, and so went back to shampoo. The experience changed my hair though. My hair dries out much easier when I wash it now, so I can get away with washing my hair less. My hair also seems to be a bit wavier. Wash your hair, girls. I don't know. You can try the no poo thing, but it didn't work for me.

I don't dye, bleach, or curl my hair. I love the idea of long, straight, black Asian hair. It makes me unique (or as unique as an Asian girl with long, straight, black hair can be). Asians actually are genetically blessed with this hair, so why change it? Actually, my hair trends toward wavy, but I'm so in love with the straight look that I considered getting a permastraight. Ultimately I didn't because it was too expensive for my tastes, and more importantly, it was hazardous to my health.

I'm glad my hair isn't processed. That allows me to donate to Locks of Love every time I grow my hair out.


Skin

This is probably the most important item. Good skin makes you look young. This is why women shouldn't wear makeup, or at least foundation, because it clogs up your pores. I have a pimple. I'm going to conceal it with junk so it will get more clogged up. Yeah. Great.


I particularly have a beef with these whitening creams that are used by Asian and African women. I never thought they were safe, so I googled them one day and found that most of them are not. You have to pay attention to the ingredients. I am considering getting some of the "safe" ones since they protect against UV damage and even out blemishes, but the number one skin product people can apply to their skin is sunscreen. It prevents wrinkles and discoloration, and keeps your skin healthy too. The number one skin product people can ingest is water. Okay, maybe that's not true, maybe you need to drink vitamin water, but it's still a good idea to stay hydrated.

I also apply lotion, because my skin is sometimes dry. Cetaphil is a good, cheap drugstore brand. I don't use toner because it's too harsh. I stopped using soap around the time I stopped using shampoo, and did not suffer any ill effects (I still use it to wash my hands).

Conclusion

When I was playing around with makeup before, and frustrated by the lack of representation of Asian models in fashion magazines educating girls about how to apply make-up, I ordered a book called Makeup for Asian Women. It showed you how to apply make-up according to your face type, etc., which appealed to me the same way dressing for your body type or coloration did--it gives you more limited, tailored choices. It also had a section for glamour, casual, and quick 10-minute work makeup. That's when I realized I would never apply makeup regularly.

In ten minutes, I could sleep for 10 extra minutes. I could check my email. I could eat breakfast. I don't need to waste 10 minutes of my time on expensive, coercive, damaging make-up.