Week 3 of our dialogue-->now called DiaBlog!

I am passionate about education and exploring with others what schools are and might be, and how learning happens all over our lives.

Right now I am at Parkway in a great discussion of the following quote, " The teacher teaches and the students are taught."  Exciting issues are emerging about whether 1) it's true because a student is always learning even if talking with a friend or mom or 2) it's not true because "learning" isn't the same as "being taught" -- by someone with the degree and the formal role.  If you're not paying attention to the teacher, are you learning? And, doesn't the student need to ask questions in order to learn?  What do you all think?

When I took a Myers-Briggs test the other day, I was told that I am an ENFP and that one of my “problems” is that I get bored very easily and constantly find new things to excite me. Interestingly, this is completely accurate of who I am. Instead of taking the time to completely master something (which is admirable to me, but not who I am at all), I love floating between a million things, never really mastering any of them (although there are things career-wise I'd like to master). Some staples in my life, however, are reading the New York Times every morning, surrounding myself with books, podcasts, and interesting blogs, exploring new restaurants and cafes, and aimlessly wandering. I also love my friends and family (I'm very, very close to my sister and often have 3 hour long conversations with her on the phone), hot drinks (coffee and tea), education reform issues (Michelle Rhee=hero), my hometown (Ithaca, NY!), thai food, classical and soundtrack music (Vivaldi and Hans Zimmer), people watching (weird), and issues about the workplace (business, leadership, etc.). Someday, I hope to pursue some of these random interests/passions and turn them into a career. I love working with people and I'm very interested in business and education, so I have a few thought about business school and consulting floating around in my head...

I guess it's all over the place, but hey, aren't we all?  

I am passionate about travelling. At home, I am always protected by my parents. They always think that I am not mature enough, not smart enough to make my own choices. Last summer, they didn't want me to take a Japanese class because it was too dangerous for me to take a bus (I took a bus thousands times before when I studied abroad). They didn't allow me to hang out with my friends or have a part-time job, travelled to a different province or even have a boyfriend because they couldn't control me or protect me when I went out. The only thing I did last summer was doing the housework. I felt like when I was a totally different person when I came home. When I studied abroad, I was energetic and passionate and ambitous. But when I was at home, I was like a kid ten years before.

I dreamed about travelling, when I can make my own decisions and explore the world. I wanted to prove to my parents that I am not a kid anymore. I wanted to overcome their rules. I wanted to rebel. Don't protect me anymore, mom and dad. I would never be successful if I am overprotected or restricted.

I am passionate about eating apples, spending time with my family, and studying to become a veterinarian. I LOVE apples—apple sauce, apple cider, apple juice, apple crisp, apple pie; basically anything that has the word APPLE in it. In high school I used to eat about 5-7 apples a day but now that I am in college I have cut back a little bit. However, I cannot go a day without having apple juice at breakfast, applesauce before lunch, and an apple before I go to sleep. This may all sound a bit odd, but it’s just something I am really passionate about eating. I guess it can’t be a bad thing anyways because as the saying goes, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away!”

Aside for my strange passion and love for apples, I am also really passionate about being with my family. I have a very close relationship with my parents and my younger brother and I really enjoy being with them. When I’m with my family, we always seem to have the greatest times and laughs together.

Lastly, I have a passion for animals and biology. I spent a lot of my high school years working at a local animal hospital and at the Philadelphia Zoo to get a better insight on my interested field of study. It has been extremely helpful for me to have these opportunities because I have learned so much about being a veterinarian. Now that I am at Bryn Mawr, I have focused a lot of my studies around biology because I am passionate about science (specially animal science) and I am hoping to go to Vet school at the University of Florida or the University of Pennsylvania once I graduate from Bryn Mawr. 

I grew up in a giant extended family who all lived, until recently, within a mile of each other.  Between my maternal and paternal families, I have a combined total of 14 biological aunts and uncles, 34 biological cousins, eight granparent couples, and too many cousins via marriage and inclusion to count.  On my mother's side, I am the oldest grandchild and oldest cousin, which meant a lot of babysitting jobs and a lot of love and support throughout my life.  As kids, we were all close because we were kind of forced togther, but as we've grown, we've become close as adults too.  

Growing up in such a big and ever changing community of people who support each other was an amazing experience for me.  I was a strange kid and, as such, had trouble making friends in school, but it never really mattered to me because I had a kind of ready made group of friends in my cousins.  Additionally, because we were always gaining new people through marriage or through someone who didn't have a family being included, I grew up with sense of family being more dictated by willingness to accept and support than it is by genetic lineage.  This has made me extremely passionate about creating a family for myself and for others everywhere I go.  It also made me into the person who tries to make everyone feel included and supported to the point where people call me in the middle of the night when they need help, and has given me an imense sense of value.  Though it can sometimes be overwhelming to attend family functions, especially now that most of us have partners of our own, Iwould not give it up for anything.  In fact, my strong family ties are exactly what led me to return to school and try something new and challenging because I knew that they would be there even if I failed. In many ways, they are the driving factor behind almost everything I do.

I feel as though I used to be a lot more passionate than I am now. I was involved in many different causes at the beginning of high school - environmental, animal rights, LGBT rights, general civil rights, etc. - but after years of being beaten down by surrounding apathy, I feel as if I've taken on the popular attitude within our generation that little can be done, so there is no use in trying. Maybe this is a way of protecting myself from emotion, as I remember being very upset and even depressed to be confronted with the attitudes of others. Recently, I was surprised by my reaction to the Occupy movement, of which years ago I would have been on the front line; now I think to myself that it is nice, and I hope that it does something, but I simply don't have enough time to get involved. I truly regret that I could be so affected by others, and I hope to get involved again in college.

All is not lost, however. I continue to be passionate about several things: family, education, and knowing myself. All of these are intertwined. Much of what I do is with thoughts of my mother. She cared for me on her own after my father left, and I have always admired her for the sacrifices she made to raise me well. She taught me of the value of education and played a large role in my current personality. It is mostly because I want to get a good job to be able to take care of her that I am in college, because while I am passionate about education, that alone would not be enough to keep me in school - after all, you don't necessarily need schooling for a good education. Furthermore, it is through my education that I get to know myself - by putting myself in uncomfortable places to overcome my discomfort, or by observing how I react to certain situations. I think this is something that more people should do, but of course, I am biased.

I'm passionate about my family. That may seem like a boring answer but I have an incredibly large family and they play a huge role in my life. I put so much effort into my school work because of my mom and my siblings. I'm the first to go to college and whenever I wake up and get ready for class, I think about why I'm getting up in the first place. I'm in college because I want to better my mom and slblings' lives and prove to my siblings that a strong work ethic and motivation can get them far.

I always saw college as a distant place - I knew I wanted to go, but I wasn't sure if and how I would get there. I think my younger sister, Soriya (who's wearing glasses in our family photo), viewed college the same way but because she saw me slaving over my college applications and the FAFSA and me finally being accepted at Bryn Mawr, she sees college as something that will definitely be a part of her future. I know my mom's incredibly proud of me and she played (and still is playing) a key role in my success at Bryn Mawr. My family and Bryn Mawr College are two interesting entities that work together to motivate me to give my all. Being a student at Bryn Mawr proves that I'm going somewhere with my hard work and my siblings and I set standards for each other. I set the bar high because I'm in college, Soriya's going to need to do the same thing and set the bar higher for Soban, and so on and so forth.