Saturday, December 20, 2008

The Semester in Papers

Papers are my favorite part of every semester. For most people, I think it's what they most despise, but for me the papers I write are the only solid products that come out of sitting in a chair for 20 hours a week listening to someone talk. I often judge my classes on how driven and fun the papers I write for them are, and this semester is no exception.

Here then, is a review of the semester's classes, as seen through papers.

Biology 101 - I didn't write any papers for this class. That means that I was bored to tears during lecture, skipped every chance I got, and studied only enough to pass. Considering that I decided to forgo studying for the final in order to finish a paper for another class (enthusiasm sometimes does not trump procrastination), I may not have even managed that. I am really hoping that I get a passing grade for this class though, because I need it to graduate.

My Final Grade: C
The Grade I Give the Class: C

ASAN 202, South and Southeast Asia - This is a freshman overview class of two Asian regions. A lot of Asian Studies majors take it as seniors because we are too busy either doing the gen ed. reqs as freshmen or are looking for interesting classes that have something to do with our focus. I took its sister class, ASAN 201, East Asia my freshman year and waited till now to get the other half done with.

Both of these classes are lecture heavy and way too broad for me to remember a general amount for a length of time, but both have a final paper that requires only that the topic be on the regions approached in class. When Taiwan is in that region I don't have to think too much about what I'm going to do. But Taiwan is not a part of South/Southeast Asian (though a case for the latter could be made) and I had to do a lot of searching before I came up with a satisfying topic.

I ended up writing an overview of South Asian folk tales. Read 6 or so books on regional stories, and tried to make the case that they can provide a good interdisciplinary education to the regional scholar. Once I had finished and turned the paper in I realized that I wanted to redo it and divide the structure up thematically instead of geographically, but it was too late. Sure enough, that was the major critique on it when I got it back.

Overall this paper was one of the most fun to research and write about, so I give the class a thumbs up.

My Final Grade: A
The Grade I Give the Class: A

Next class is ASAN 3hundred something. Modern Asian Nations.

This class is always a mixed bag. Like I mentioned in my previous post, the students in it are not all the students that you would want in a class where the teacher tries to drive learning by discussion. I skipped quite a few times, where as with the 202 class I didn't.

However, with this class I got the chance to write about Taiwan, and in doing so managed to up my expertise in the area of my academic interest. The book I read, Taiwan and Post Communist Europe, was surprisingly interesting for a book on economic diplomacy, and is one I'd like to own if it didn't cost over a hundred dollars on Amazon. That's what university libraries are for, I suppose.

I made the mistake of reading the book at the beginning of the semester and trying to write my paper on it at the end, so that by the time I was writing I had forgotten most of the concrete points that I had intended to include. I make a habit of heavily annotating books with stickies, so the damage of time was not completely irreparable by the little slips of paper that served as memory bandages for my project, but I ended up with a very untidy product. Out of a suggested six page paper I wrote only four, but ended up with a decent grade anyway.

My Final Grade: A
The Grade I Give the Class: B

Race, Class and the Law - Ah, a well structured class with decent reading material, knowledgeable professor, and enthusiastic students. That's what college is about. The class revolved around the readings and discussion of readings. Almost no writing was involved whatsoever until the last few weeks of the semester in which we had to write a ten page paper on any law case we wanted as long as we made a token effort to refer to critical race theory.

Since the elections had just ended and California was ablaze in anti Prop 8 litigation, I wrote my paper on that. Talk about last minute. I was afraid that I had somehow missed my deadline and was going to fail the class on account of it, but when grades came in it seemed as if all was well. Of all the papers that I wrote, this one was probably the most solid, and the subject lent itself to real fun analysis.

My Final Grade: A
The Grade I Give the Class: A

My final class was Racism & Ethnicity in Hawaii. This was perhaps the exact opposite of my Race and Law class. Not much discussion, readings that I skipped completely, a teacher that was very knowledgeable, but was not in depth, and a ton of little writing assignments that meant nothing and were a pain to write. I ended up skipping one entirely, but with the way the grading was structured I ended up with an A+ for the class.

For my final paper I had to read a book on Hawaiian issues and chose Na Kua'aina. Writings on Hawaiian issues in general are supremely boring, but this book took the cake. My 'review' of it resembled a first grade book report ('chapter one was about...') but the only other option was to write a paper with a separate thesis and a insert a few choice quotes, perhaps, 'Hawaiians live off the land' and pass it off as a review. I didn't care nearly enough for the topic to go through that bother and pumped out my most fill-in-the-blanks-here BS paper of the semester. I still got an A.

My Final Grade: A
The Grade I Give the Class: C

Friday, December 12, 2008

End of Semester Report Pt. 1

Well, one more final and it's over. One more semester and it's -completely- over. Hm.

There will be a lot to say about what worked and what didn't about this semester, but before I start taking a serious look at my progress (have to figure out which direction I should be looking first) there is one amusing anecdote about the semester that forced my soul to let out one of those little half sobs that skirts the line between sob and laugh.

The major project in my modern Asia class is a book review. Not a report, where we write the first paragraph of every chapter and end with "I liked this book because," but an honest to goodness review. Our teacher encouraged us to debate with the book, to analyze the source, all that good stuff. I enjoy the chance to read interesting things and then write critically about them, so it's a great project for me.

The students in that class are a mixed bag. Take one handful of Asian studies majors who can actually point to Laos on a map (I can't, but I know where Taichung is, so I'm exempt), a handful of architect students who for some reason need to take upper division Asian studies, and sprinkle around the usual 'I need to fill in a requirement' crowd, and you have our class.

As someone who has been forced to go the 'I need to fill a requirement' route myself, I can't blame those students for not knowing or caring about what we are learning. But sometimes I can't help myself and end up wonder what the hell certain students are doing in college.

With that excessively lengthy introduction aside, here's what happened.

We had to present the books we were reading to the class within 5 minutes. It was pretty clear who had read and understood and who hadn't. The highlight of all the presentations was one about a book studying Japanese streets. From what I could gather from the presentation, it had a sociological bent, what with the mention of 'how the Japanese use streets', but after 5 minutes I can honestly say I had no clue about what this book was about.

I can't say I was surprised. The presentation opened with this interesting fact. "Kyoto is the capitol of Japan."

What? Not since the Meiji restoration has Kyoto been the capitol of Japan. I'd get it if the presentation was on something prior to that, but it was all about modern day Japan, and there was no 'was' anywhere to be found. Not in the speech nor the powerpoint.

Ok, well, I've been known to make odd mental switches. It happens to the best of us. What else about Japanese streets?

"Japanese use a lot of kanji because it looks good, like art."

...what?

...

WHAT?

From there it went down hill. The only thing said within those five minutes that sounded like it was worth hearing was a quick comparison between French streets. ("French use streets to mingle, Japanese use them to get somewhere.") I was tempted to take the book out afterword to see just how much the presentation was an exercise in pooping out tidbits of BS from the mouth, but I had my own book review to do.

The worst part, perhaps, was that I could not tell if the presenter was doing this intentionally or not. They had made their contempt for the class and the teacher blatant from day one, answering every question with 'sure' no matter what it was ("What's the capitol of Japan?"), and did not seem to like me at all, probably because I participated. I like to have an optimistic view of humanity and think that someone in an upper level Asian studies class saying that Japanese use Kanji 'cause it looks cool is really code for 'fuck you sensei', but sometimes the distinction between willfull and innocent ignorance doesn't matter, and all I want to do is say 'fuck you' back. I can hear the fatal flush of my tuition money swirling down the toilet when I'm in classes populated by people like that.

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. I decided to go to a university where the most difficult hurdle in the admissions process is graduating high school.

That Asian Studies class didn't teach me much, but I certainly did realize the value of being selective with who you deal with. So thank you presenter person, you've given me an education in your amazing efforts to avoid one for yourself.

Friday, December 5, 2008

Wishlists

It's that time of year again. Time to be greedy that is!

Ever since I've gone off to college I've had problems with Christmas presents. It simply isn't feasible to take them all onto a plane with me, but I'm still can't say "one month rent" when people ask me what I want. So, I've looked around a bit for ideas of things that I might acutally use, and come up with a very small list.

> First, I've been eyeing Alphasmarts for a while now. They're kind of expensive if ordered fresh from the company, but there are always a ton up for sale on e-bay, and I am all for hand-me-downs when you save 70 bucks in the deal.

> Second, I've been curious about handheld e-readers for a while now. I don't want to ask for one because I really do not want to end up with a model that doesn't work for me and then not know what to do. It's something I'd rather shop for myself. That, and they are prohibitively expensive. $350 for a Cybook, my probable first choice, and even more for the less appealing Kindle. Until I can write notes in them, put my name on the covers and pick up random discarded ones from the side of the street, I don't think I'll be converting.

> Third, I really do need nothing more than money to feed myself and put a roof over my head.

> That said, a nice christmas gift would be for family to donate to put a roof over someone elses head in my name. I always thought that a donation was a nice gift, and since I can't think of much for myself, now is a good Christmas to add this to the list. A publishing blog I read noted that her local animal shelter was very short on funds and volunteers. A ten dollar donation to these guys would be the ultimate 'thought that counts' gift.

I would add straight As and a fairy to finish my papers for me to this list but I'm trying to be realistic.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Education Connection

A few weekend ago Hawaii had a sort of High School Fair, where departments set up tables on campus and tried to lure unsuspecting high school seniors into their respective fields of study. Since I was doing nothing that Saturday and our adviser was looking for volunteers, I went to check things out. The entire affair was scattered all over the campus. Every department had set up around its building, which meant that many of them were hidden. The Asian Studies table was at Moore Hall, an H shaped, five story building surrounded by a lava stone wall. The tables were set up in the small court under the building, and were completely invisible. We didn't see a single student come by the entire day. If I were prone to generalizations I would see this as indication that scholastic types really do have a disability when it comes to marketing.

When I arrived there were five or six people at the table, including an older woman who I shared an introductory class with. When I approached the table she smiled at me, handed me a brochure and asked me if I was interested in the Asian Studies program at Hawaii. I smiled back and told here that I was a college senior in that very program, and furthermore, that we were classmates.

Granted, she's always in the front, I come in through the back, and our class is relatively big at 30 some people. We had a good laugh and got to know each other. Of course I can't remember her name (I'm a horrible person.) but her path up to Hawaii was fascinating. With no prospective students to woo, we spend most of the day talking.

As I was walking home I got to thinking about the sort of relationships I've fallen into during my stay in Hawaii. I love the academics, and I love talking to people who love the academics, but my day to day life is devoid of meaningful contact with them. I only have one semester left. In high school people used to say that the friendships made in college were the ones that would last you a lifetime. I've certainly made good friends, and some of them have lasted through not only time but geographical separation, but when it comes to what I want to do with my life, I know very few people who share my passion professionally and are also good friends on a personal level.

Whether this is due to my action (or inaction) or is a consequence of events I can't quite say, but I think if this drought of professional friendships were to end, perhaps my trepidation about graduation would fade a bit too.

NaNo a No Go

Some time in the middle of the month I stopped working on NaNo. I know what did it, because it happens every year. November is not just NaNo. It's also 'hey, guess what, you have 1000 papers due soon,' month. It doesn't help that I think that premise is cursed. I've tried to write the same thing three years now, and 8k is as far as I've gotten. At least I made that record this year, which indicates that I am making some marginal improvement.

Even though Nano is over, there's no reason for me to stop writing. Winter vacation is coming up, and I'll have all the free time I want to bust out a novel, theoretically.