why I am sad, how I can be less sad, and what I am doing with my life
why I am sad
Though sometimes I might tell myself that my experience in the workplace has gotten easier (and no doubt, under great fortune it has), I know that the unpleasantries are all still intact. It is my heightened tolerance for unhappiness that should be thanked for the numbness through which I have experienced my life since spring 2011.
When I first joined Teach For America, I thought that two years is not a significant amount of time. Two years? I couldn’t finish microwaving a frozen burrito in two years. High school was 4, college was nearly 4, and both seemed to vanish instantly. I was ignorant of the sensitivities of time. Time spent in happiness does not linger. It is brief in weight and feeling. Time spent diminishing your soul is quagmire. It is painful, scarring, and damaging.
The top 6 things that make me most sad:
1.) When I go home, old friends tell me that my voice has changed, “like I’ve been through hell.”
2.) Looking at facebook and seeing the ongoing lives and activities of people I used to know creates within me a sense of isolation, longing, and jealousy.
3.) Parents who are unable to correctly write their child’s name, or are unable to assist their children with first grade homework. I recently had a parent ask me if 10 out of 10 was a good score on her daughter’s spelling quiz.
4.) A workplace in which I am threatened, screamed at, and repeatedly blamed/held accountable for the egregious failures of a society.
5.) The incredible width between my reality, and the realities of people that I used to partake in and commensurate with.
6.) A lacking Asian American/Queer community.
how I can be less sad
I have tried many solutions. In the short-term, working out consistently has benefitted me tremendously. Also, painting makes me feel better because I am able to create something with a process reminiscent of greater moments of happiness in my life, and simply because I am able to accomplish something that I know I am good at (due to study and practice), and that I am naturally inclined to do. As a side note, yes, I believe that teaching is a learned skill, but some people want to/naturally enjoy it more than others. Asian food is happiness as well, because it is culturally familiar. On the weekend, I will drive the 40 minutes round-trip without hesitation for a bowl of pho that would prevent me from crying.
what I am doing with my life
One month ago, I applied to UC Irvine for a masters in teaching, single subject credential in art education. However, seeing as the teaching market in California is fawful, I don’t know if I want to invest 30 grand into a job that I might not even be able to obtain, and that might not even make me happy. In a recent trip back home, one of my good life-friends told me about her job as an artist for an iphone gaming company. It’s in a city that I want to raise kids in, provides a pay that I should be able to work with, doing something that I love, for a job that you don’t take home with you.
So now, I’m building a game art portfolio (childhood dream unreached), mostly self-teaching myself how to use a computer illustration program that many 21 years olds spent $80,000 to be taught, and praying that I am able to compete. For those of you who may know me, my degree was in Studio Art (painting, drawing, photography and sculpture), not illustration/design. And UC Irvine’s art school was highly conceptual. To do this job, I am learning a medium that I have no experience in.
Anyway, now I’m making shit like this:
and this
and this
Wish me luck.
Via colorlines:
A new report that analyses the distribution of grants and scholarships by race found students of color are less likely to win private scholarships or receive merit-based institutional grants than white students. The report found that white students receive more than three times as much in merit-based grant and private scholarship funding than students of color.
White students receive more than three-quarters (76 percent) of all institutional merit-based scholarship and grant funding, even though they represent less than two-thirds (62 percent) of the student population, according to the report published by Mark Kantrowit, the financial aid guru behind Fastweb.com and FinAid.org.
Kantrowit believes that the myth that there aren’t enough scholarships for white students comes from highly-qualified white students being turned away and those students in turn assuming the money went to students of color.
The myth that students of color are taking all the scholarship money is so prevalent that policies like California’s Proposition 209 and Michigan’s Civil Rights Initiative (Proposal 2) include mentions that scholarships and financial aid should be awarded solely on the basis of need and ability, not racewhat? affirmative action ISN’T the object of your missplaced anger at not receiving a scholarship to college? REALLY?
I’m bookmarking this study so I can bring it up anytime ANYONE says that they didn’t receive a scholarship because they were white. If you don’t get on the internet and do a google search and spend your days looking for scholarship money (that you aren’t even entitled to anyway) then STOP BLAMING PEOPLE OF COLOR.
This study shows that white students are both the majority of students going to college AND students who receive scholarships. This just tells me that we need to spend MORE time & money making sure underrepresented groups can actually afford going to college.
Honestly, this excites me cause the next time I see some ignorant “my baby can’t go to college cause we’re white and its NOT FAIR” post anywhere in the world, I will straight up go irate on a muthafucka.
spread the word
Reblogging because this myth of POC getting “all the scholarships” needs to die quickly. Seriously though.
I also think that it speaks a lot about white entitlement that white people, especially white students, when they find that they’re denied scholarships or have trouble paying for college, immediately turn their anger on POC rather than being angry at a system here in the U.S. that has made college education so expensive that without aid and scholarships, it’s beyond the reach of so many. Instead of getting pissed at legislators and other people who have upped tuitions and cut education spending, they get mad at POC.
Because the issue is seems isn’t that people are made about education being put out of reach. They’re mad that the education that is available isn’t exclusively reserved just for white people.
And that my friends, is being entitlement-minded and white supremacist.
(via fascinasians)
