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 I really enjoyed reading "Slipping" and hearing about the recent incident involoving the Confederate Flag on campus and how it was resolved. Living in Bryn Mawr amonst many people of various beliefs and ideas, things like this are bound to happen but it is good we are able resovle these issues peacefully. I liked this quote from page 255 that reads "We cannot learn the truth about what we think or the truth about how others feel about what we think" without open discussion, without a "slip". I really appreciate how Bryn Mawr fosters healthy discussions through our seminars, providing  a place for people to speak openly and learn about other cultures, beliefs, and values.

I read the beginning because I felt that was a good place to start and also I was very unsure of how much I was supposed to read. I really liked how I could hear Jody's voice in the text. It was kind of like she was reading it to me in class. Which reminded me of our meeting where she told me that I need to write to my audience and make my papers more reader accessible. The content of the first chapter was also very interesting. The concept of "slipping" was introduced and it gave a name to something that I've experienced a lot back home. I'm from Texas, so like Jody I came up north and expected a whole new world. What I got was definitely different but not as foreign as I had originally anticipated.

Every coin has two sides. Angle couldn’t exist without evil and life cannot flourish without sacrifice. ‘There is no vapid, irresponsible happiness.’ As Le Guin suggests, things could be deceptively flawless when you only view them from the surfaces. Just like how the prosperous of some cities stems its roots into the darkness of slavery, how the life of upper-classes thrives on the corruptions and how the citizen of Omelas intoxicated in joy blind to the child in the basement in Le Guin’s story, I was deceived by the friendship that happened to me which I once perceived as life-long.

 Jack is my schoolmate and one of my best friends in high school. We met each other in senior year. After simply chatting with each other, we found that we’re both from Pudong new district in Shanghai. (Shanghai is a large city, there are more than ten districts in Shanghai, and Shanghai is so big that even we all say Shanghainese, the dialect may sound different in different districts). And soon we found out the we live in the same neighborhood, and we found that we have so many things in common.  We soon become close friends.

       The relationship between my “sister” and I should be like an “asymmetrical relation of power” (Pratt p.34) in the beginning. As she was more mature and braver to share her opinions, I should have a sense of worship on her. I dare say, I was the kind of person, who would be too nervous to think about responses when involved into a situation where I was not supposed to limit my behavior in nodding or shaking my head. I would doubt about myself if the person who I was talking to did not understand or disagree with my ideas.

As Octavia Butler concludes, “I won’t leave you as Lomas was left-alone, N’Tlic. I will take care of you.” (20)

The last time I saw him was thirteen years ago. This was after their separation with my mother. He was an alcoholic. He was supposed to be the bread winner of the family because he had a salaried job. However, he lavished all his income on alcohol. My mother provided us with whatever she could afford from her meagre wages which she earned from her irregular blue collar jobs. He did not contribute anything towards our welfare. He had subjected my very own mother to torture and domestic abuse. He battered her almost to the point of death the night before he left.

My Revelation About Sense of Communities

Vivian O’Bannon

Emily Balch Seminar: Changing Our Story

September 9, 2016

Understanding My Privileges and Lack Thereof

To understand privilege, one must understand the lack thereof.  Because “my sexuality is not a part of my physical identity, and people are often discriminated against for their appearance” (O’Bannon 2), I am able to appreciate the privileges within my specific tribulation.  I constantly remind myself that – although people like me are converted, massacred, imprisoned, hated – at least I can hide behind my appearance.  At least sexuality is internal.  At least I can suppress my love.  At least I am not gay and fill-in-the-blank.

I have it all; the education, the happy single parent household, the stable socio-economic status.  Although society was built against me in so many ways, I can say that I am a happy woman. My idea of happiness may be different than yours. Ursula LeGuin says that, “happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive.”(2)  Based on this definition I can say I am happy. But my happiness is systematically built on the fact that I need to do better than others.  I may not encounter those I need to step on in order for my happiness to prevail in my everyday life but I definitely have some dirt on my shoes.  But there is one person I know I have had to step on in order to be where I am.