Travels

With Senior year approaching, I decided to travel. In distance, and otherwise. But first, a few travel pics from the photo montage created by one immaculate, Xander Warso.



Amherst/ Boston

I went to Mass. to reconnect with two of my closer friends from IHP. One, a spunky, sociable Vietnamese Philly gal passionate about nutrition. And the other a brilliant (understatement), kind-hearted, yet bemusing Amherst Chemistry major.

During the summer, she worked as a coordinator with an inner-city youth group in Philly teaching the kids about the importance of nutrition. He is currently working in a personal laboratory doing chem research for a professor and preparing for a senior thesis I don't quite understand. Downstairs at the Amherst science building, his poster is displayed.

I was astonished. What education is and what education can lead to was reinforced back into me. The purpose of my trip was to party up and reconnect (which happened), but it left me in awe of what these two are able to do with their lives and reminded me of what I wanted for myself after Colby. The international students living on campus at Amherst during the summer seem to be able to balance fun with an intense academic drive. They talked about GREs, graduate schools, and careers.

Because I wasted my first two years at Colby trying to find my niche, I now understand that I don't want my education to end there. Cultural anthropology is an extremely self-indulgent field; it allows people to explore themselves, through understanding how they're different from others. The problem becomes whether or not it helps the "other" at all, or whether the anthropologist even has the condescending right to believe that he or she should fix the "other". Anthropology is the first step. I will do my self exploring but I don't wish to end there because what separates me from the typically white anthropologist is that, in America, I am the other. My career and life choices has to be more than exploration and publishing about the "exotic" (hmm). It has to be about more than Anthropology.

...I wasn't ready to come down to Amherst but I came down. And in the days following, it's reinforced in me a reality that hasn't ever gone away, and that's that I'll go to just about any length to keep the people and things that are important to me, in my life.

J. Cole "Lights Please"... Amazing.

"trick ain't even have brains dummy like a bitch
so I try to show her, about the world and about just who we really are
and where we've come and how we still have to go really far,
like baby look at how we lived broke on the boulevard
but all she ever want me to do is unhook her bra
then all I really want is for her to go down low
before you know it she wet enough to get drowned slow
And all that deep shit I was previously down for
replaced by freak shit I am currently down for
You see I peeped it pussy is power
that proud feeling we get knowing that pussy is ours"

Bronx, NYC

The Bronx isn't the portion of NYC marketed to tourists or the outsiders. I came to see a friend who seems both comfortable in his Colby/ professional career persona, as well as his place as just one of the dudes in the neighborhood.

Being a woman of color, as far as looks are concerned, I could blend in. However, it's safe to say I've been given more opportunities and privilege, so I can't quite imagine how I would survive or react if I were living in the Bronx. I can see a difference philosophically and mentally (likely caused by social stratification) between the peeps I met in the Bronx and where I come from. But I can't say I truly understand... anthropology and what people think they know without actually being someone else, IS self indulgent.

Instead of the big picture, I cherished the small moments. I had some of the best fish in my life and learned strategies for dominos in New York.

Portland

The fear of Waterville and Portland, ME is not that there is nothing to do and no one to talk to. I've never been sociable enough to be popular. I had 3 or so friends in high school. Four to five friends in college in the 3 years of college. About four or five friends that I was really close with on IHP. But all that has always been ok, if I get married, I'll have enough friends to make into bridesmaids. I think the fear is that, I know exactly what I want now career-wise and family wise.

Take GRE sometime senior year.

A year off to explore myself, work, and live where I want to live. Join AmeriCorps Vista or the Peace Corps.

Get my master's degree in Black studies and a PhD in Sociology at Temple, or UCLA, or NYU.

And eventually teach in areas where minority students are lagging behind other students.

Some school will accept me.
Some GRE score will be good enough.
Loans will eventually be paid. And I'll be able to help someone.
The capability of intellectually being able to accomplish these goals is not what I fear. It's realizing that I'm a needy person and being brave enough to find a new niche and a new group of people who will nurture me along the way, each time I thrust myself into the next challenging stage. Because as I learned in Lewiston working at the paper, an accomplishment doesn't feel rewarding if there isn't anyone to share the experience with. Again, I selfishly want everything. I want to enjoy the process of becoming the person I've always wanted to become.

One of my favorite videos, "The Fire" by the R.O.O.T.S