eirénikós

There are many ways to gain popularity — be extremely rich, very good-looking, have a friendly and outgoing personality, be a genius… However, in the environment of a prestigous, private university, where a majority of the student population are from upper middle class families, and whose parents are great people in society — most of the above options won’t work at all. What will always make one the center of conversations, though…however somewhat — well, absolutely — on the negative side, is to be a overly-curious and annoy questioner.

I will never forget a fellow freshman I’ve encountered in my first year in college. She was in three of my above-average courses: two of which we shared the same lectures, and one I was in the lecture section after hers. At first glance, she appeared to be an intelligent person — if somewhat strange — though such abnormal cases are common in a college like mine. She always set in the front row. Attended every lecture, took notes on everything the professor had said. Studied periodically — more likely constantly. A passionate student she was, one could say. However, the day when she opened her mouth — everything changed.

All professors encourage students to ask questions in, before, and after lectures. However, when the questioning gets to an extend of annoyance and way overly done — there clearly is a problem. My fellow first year student couldn’t not stop asking questions…and note, those questions were in most cases irrelevent to the lecture, or so strange that no one have ever thought of — in the context of: “Why do you even bother to ask that question?”

The first professor got so annoyed by her that he completely ignored her after a while, or seemly said that “The answer to the question will be cover in later topics” (which is mostly true). The second professor, poor him, had to stay later than usual in the classroom to offer her explanations, until the next class came and kick him out, and still had the girl following him out with more questions. The third professor, whose course I’m in right now, had just discovered the horror of having a student like her…

Well, at least she proved a way to be popular in the student population — even though people disliked her. It was funny how after the first lecture I had with the third professor — in which, of course, she asked one or two questions — everyone in that course section seemed to know her. When I went to the course Discussion section this Monday, and the TA there was saying something that I cannot recall.

One student replied: “Well, there was this little **[censor]** who kept asking those stupid questions…”

Conversation revolving around that certain **[…]** person started.

Sometime later… TA: “Some people like that may happen to be your boss in the future…”

Student: “Some people may just be too socially awkward to be promoted.”

I do feel sorry for that fellow first year student, however, at times it just became too much for me to handle — I’d rather get through a lecture peaceful, without anyone interrupting the professor with pointless questions…

Last Wednesday I met a family friend at the local library. She was one of my aunt’s good friend, actually, and had nothing to do with my family. I did not even recognize her in the first two minutes of our conversation. She was a mid-age mother of two childs (one in middle school, one in medical school) — exactly like my aunt. Upon spotting me, she came forth and started asking me questions regarding my college life,
my experiences in getting in a good school — my opinion on whether such thing is nessecary, and how did I get into a good college anyways — what did my parents do to help me, what did I do…etc. She went on and on — kept me standing in between those bookshelves for hours — destroying my hope for a quiet and productive afternoon.

Of course, it would be rude to express my impatience. Thus, I went along with her and tried my best to help her by answering those questions.

It turned out that she was worrying about her younger son’s future. She hoped that he will be able to give more advance education than her older daughter, who went to a normal college and a normal medical school. She admired my aunt whose children are very smart, went to good schools, and “have such bright future waiting for them”. She wanted her son to be like that too, however, she’s unwilling to spend time on helping (or in the case of most traditional Chinese parents, forcing) her child to achieve those things. As she’s getting older, she hoped to just have a good time the rest of her life and not worrying too much about her children. I understood her feeling; it’s hard for parents with children who have large age differences in between — after the tiresome experience of raising one kid, they have to do it all over again… So I started telling her that she should keep up with some ocassional encouragement for her son, but let him study independently, just try to get him aware of the benefits of a good education… Since that’s what I went through as a child — my parents had stopped caring about my academic life since I was in 4 or 5th grade…

After listening to the mother for more, I finally realize the main reason she wanted her son to go to a good school — and it seemed, surprisingly disturbing to me. She cared far more about the crowd her children are hanging in than their academics. She told me about her daughter having a best friend whose parents got divorced, and how she thought that because of the divorce, that girl must be somewhat psychologically affected and thus must have problems. She went on saying that the girl has piercings (for instance, on eyebrows) and tried to convince her daughter to get some too. Because of these reasons, the mother was sure that the girl is abnormal and such must be a bad person whom her daughter shouldn’t associate at all. She also dislike homosexuality and asked me (with a disgusted expression on her face) whether Duke University has gay students… I was very opposed to her views and tried to explain to her that children with divorced parents, orphans, homosexual or bisexual people, and other seemingly uncommon people, aren’t bad people at all, and they often do not have pschological problems… In fact, in a country with high divorce rates such as the U.S., children with divorced parents are often more independent and mature, and have strong personalities. Yet, I could not convince her that those kids are not abnormal in a bad way, but unique…

I cannot believe that in the current open-minded society, there are still parents who think like that. Not everyone we encounter are perfectly normal and good. Abnormality is not necessarily bad — for often people benefit from it. After all, isn’t life about meeting new (and consequently, different) things?

Pass experience and outer appearence don’t always define a person, it’s what inside matters. I know that I have made the right choice in befriending the people around me, even though they may be considered abnormal by certain people.

Once again, I failed to following my pre-made schedule. It is been, officially, a week into Winter Break, yet I have not done any thing, except shopping, that was on the To Do List I’ve written before leaving Duke. T_T I did, however, stayed up till 2 or 3 am and consequently slept over till 12 pm each day, sat in front of the computer screen all the time (further worsen my eye sight), and shopped aimlessly — I’m getting tired of it already, I went to three different shopping center, plus two of which twice in only five days…well, good thing I have a budget. =|

My father is very annoy. He has an extremely high taste that is normally far above what the family can provide. For instance, since we came to the US, he has been obsessed with cars. I do admit that he is the most experienced driver in the family and had drived many types of vehicles while in China. However, he has a problem with not getting new, most updated, or advanced object (whether it be car, computer, tool…etc). Also, he was sort of spoiled while growing up in an above-average family; money just slips through his fingers like water. Hence, mother, who controls the family finance, had to make sure that we do not spend too much for some of father’s personal desires… When we bought our first car, father was very excited and made excuses to drive it all the time. Then, gradually, he got tired of sharing the car and started wanting to have one of his own. After many nights of persuading and bugging us (mother and me), we finally got him a used car — since at that time we cannot afford a new one. Like always, father was happy at first, but after a year he started craving for more. So, one day, he purposely drove the used car all the way up Florida state (when he knew that it couldn’t handle long distance drive) and it broke on the way back home. Poor father was stuck on the highway and had to stay over night in an old couple’s home. But! He got his wish — another car, though still used. After I came back from college this winter, I saw that father, after driving the car for merely half a year, had finally convinced (and no doubt annoyed her to no end) mother to get rid of the used car and buy him a new car. The brand new car was very nice, and is a stick shift (which only he knows how to operate). Now, he’s always working on the car, even my friend who came over this afternoon was laughing at him — saying to me that “your father is totally babying the car”. So what if he spent half of the money for my college tuition on buying the car? And spending more since he had already gotten two tickets this year and had raisen the car insurance? We can’t do anything about those since they have already happened. However, what’s very annoy is that he kept saying bad things about the old family car which mother drives. He should at least be content with his car and just stop bothering mother and me, making us feel bad! >_> Oh, just imagine him like that in everything else… Father is a hopeless case.