(no subject)
GUYS I FEEL LIKE NOTHING.
Well, um, that was how I felt before I went to badminton after the PSAT, lunch, and an hour-long nap that I wanted to go on forever because I did not fill my 25 hour school-night sleeping quota this week. Augh. The endorphins from badminton have kind of worn off now, so it's more blurg than anything else, I guess. But I-I mean, my coach said I was good and tried to use me for demonstration except for the fact that I CAN'T DROP.
So, um, my cousin wants to get married. He was asking my mom for money so he could buy a place to live with his fiancee a while back, and she really doesn't want to send him money. He's a waiter in a Japanese restaurant in China which I kind of find amusing and I haven't seen him since I was ten. But my mom's really pissed because he didn't study when she sent him money for college, didn't want a security job after my grandfather had to do a lot of begging to get him it, and he doesn't really want to work.
...idek guys. I wonder if he sees us as the "rich family that lives in America" and figures we have enough money to support him in this time of "need". We're middle-class here and we don't have a ton of money to fritter away for his sake, and he could rent a place to live until he saves up enough money to buy an actual apartment/house. But I digress.
It's funny how I'm thinking about how America is a land of opportunity. That's kind of why my parents came here, and it's why the Scots-Irish and Scots and Germans etc etc came here in the 17th and 18th centuries. Degler writes, "The relative ease with which wealth could be accumulated..." (48) shows that people could make their money easily, and that is what attracted so many to the colonies at first. American society was a truncated pyramid of society, the classes easily flexible and people moving up all the time.
And yet our seminar discussion in AP yesterday had one side saying that it was really only white, wealthy Americans (not even a third of the population in the late 1700's). America at the time had a bit of a social flexibility crisis and people couldn't move to higher classes as easily. And it's still like that today, but we look at how people have built up their lives from nearly nothing and think, "that's so awesome--anyone can do that."
Except, you know, some people can't. They're not smart enough, they don't work hard enough, they're just not capable because of certain parts of themselves that have been hard-wired so that they can't change them fast enough to be like the successful people of the world. And that social mobility we once had is no longer based on just learning to farm and making money from that. Today we have real jobs, ones that take skills and college and all sorts of things that the farmers of the 17th century never had. So why the heck are we putting such emphasis on it?
Let's face it: my mother and my father were the smartest in their families. They pooled their genes and had smart kids, yes. My mother's brother was the handsome one and has one very gorgeous daughter (I love Nana~) and one handsome son that wants money to buy a house for his fiancee. My mother's sister was also the pretty girl in her family, and my mother was just a hard worker.
I mean, my mother is intelligent. She got through Beijing University, the top college in China. She finished her chemistry major from the hospital after nine months of having to relearn how to walk because of a huge chemical spill. Her legs are scarred but I personally think that she is pretty. Except she was the plain one that was smart in China, the girl who wanted to go with her sister when they went to stay with relatives when her mother got eye surgery but had to play in the mud with her brother and his friends, digging up snails and other weird creatures in the river. The one who had to give up the violin because her family couldn't pay for a violin. The one who had a five+ year long-distance relationship with my father when he was in America and she was still in China.
But still, she got to be who she was because she worked hard and had to face a lot of pain as a young child. Her brother drank and ruined his body, and now she's got a nephew knocking saying, "can you lend me money if you won't give it to me?"
Sometimes I really worry about my mother. I love her and she's one of my favorite people in the world even if she's not one of the ~cool~ moms. But she's had to work so much and the added stress of contemplating whether or not to send money to my cousin is just so heavy.
idek guys. I just don't know.
Now that that's done, it's DEGLER TIME so I can go to Mitsuwa with Lizzie tomorrow. <3 But dinner first. /D;;
Also, I'M SCARED FOR MY SOLO THE CONCERT IS ON THURSDAY I HAVE TO PAY FOR MY SHOES STILL AND MEMORIZE THE CLAPS FOR "Yo le Canto" AND REMEMBER WHERE TO MOVE WHEN I HAVE TO SING THE SOLO FRICK FRICK FRICK.
Well, um, that was how I felt before I went to badminton after the PSAT, lunch, and an hour-long nap that I wanted to go on forever because I did not fill my 25 hour school-night sleeping quota this week. Augh. The endorphins from badminton have kind of worn off now, so it's more blurg than anything else, I guess. But I-I mean, my coach said I was good and tried to use me for demonstration except for the fact that I CAN'T DROP.
So, um, my cousin wants to get married. He was asking my mom for money so he could buy a place to live with his fiancee a while back, and she really doesn't want to send him money. He's a waiter in a Japanese restaurant in China which I kind of find amusing and I haven't seen him since I was ten. But my mom's really pissed because he didn't study when she sent him money for college, didn't want a security job after my grandfather had to do a lot of begging to get him it, and he doesn't really want to work.
...idek guys. I wonder if he sees us as the "rich family that lives in America" and figures we have enough money to support him in this time of "need". We're middle-class here and we don't have a ton of money to fritter away for his sake, and he could rent a place to live until he saves up enough money to buy an actual apartment/house. But I digress.
It's funny how I'm thinking about how America is a land of opportunity. That's kind of why my parents came here, and it's why the Scots-Irish and Scots and Germans etc etc came here in the 17th and 18th centuries. Degler writes, "The relative ease with which wealth could be accumulated..." (48) shows that people could make their money easily, and that is what attracted so many to the colonies at first. American society was a truncated pyramid of society, the classes easily flexible and people moving up all the time.
And yet our seminar discussion in AP yesterday had one side saying that it was really only white, wealthy Americans (not even a third of the population in the late 1700's). America at the time had a bit of a social flexibility crisis and people couldn't move to higher classes as easily. And it's still like that today, but we look at how people have built up their lives from nearly nothing and think, "that's so awesome--anyone can do that."
Except, you know, some people can't. They're not smart enough, they don't work hard enough, they're just not capable because of certain parts of themselves that have been hard-wired so that they can't change them fast enough to be like the successful people of the world. And that social mobility we once had is no longer based on just learning to farm and making money from that. Today we have real jobs, ones that take skills and college and all sorts of things that the farmers of the 17th century never had. So why the heck are we putting such emphasis on it?
Let's face it: my mother and my father were the smartest in their families. They pooled their genes and had smart kids, yes. My mother's brother was the handsome one and has one very gorgeous daughter (I love Nana~) and one handsome son that wants money to buy a house for his fiancee. My mother's sister was also the pretty girl in her family, and my mother was just a hard worker.
I mean, my mother is intelligent. She got through Beijing University, the top college in China. She finished her chemistry major from the hospital after nine months of having to relearn how to walk because of a huge chemical spill. Her legs are scarred but I personally think that she is pretty. Except she was the plain one that was smart in China, the girl who wanted to go with her sister when they went to stay with relatives when her mother got eye surgery but had to play in the mud with her brother and his friends, digging up snails and other weird creatures in the river. The one who had to give up the violin because her family couldn't pay for a violin. The one who had a five+ year long-distance relationship with my father when he was in America and she was still in China.
But still, she got to be who she was because she worked hard and had to face a lot of pain as a young child. Her brother drank and ruined his body, and now she's got a nephew knocking saying, "can you lend me money if you won't give it to me?"
Sometimes I really worry about my mother. I love her and she's one of my favorite people in the world even if she's not one of the ~cool~ moms. But she's had to work so much and the added stress of contemplating whether or not to send money to my cousin is just so heavy.
idek guys. I just don't know.
Now that that's done, it's DEGLER TIME so I can go to Mitsuwa with Lizzie tomorrow. <3 But dinner first. /D;;
Also, I'M SCARED FOR MY SOLO THE CONCERT IS ON THURSDAY I HAVE TO PAY FOR MY SHOES STILL AND MEMORIZE THE CLAPS FOR "Yo le Canto" AND REMEMBER WHERE TO MOVE WHEN I HAVE TO SING THE SOLO FRICK FRICK FRICK.