A Nerd’s Haven

I have had absolutely nothing to say for two weeks straight. To anyone.

I spend my days working out, trying to find a place in Charlotte’s dry unskilled labor force, reading, and watching television. Only the reading and the working out are making me feel any better about myself. You know you need something to do when “Knight Rider” starts to seem like a fascinating show.

In addition, my father has decided to treat me like a grown-up and charge me rent–$50 a week. But he’s still hiding the movie Deliverance from me.

I haven’t been on my computer much, nor have I talked to many (read: any) friends over the past two weeks. Well, I let my buddy Dulin come over to try to sell us some knives, but that’s about it.

And then Michael called. I hadn’t even talked to him on AIM since school let out (that seems like a long time ago already), and I happened to hear my phone ring when I was all the way in the living room. We chatted for a total of about 50 minutes, split into two phone calls.

Now I’m thinking about that stack of books I’m reading and wanting to write reviews for, and I’m wanting to hunt down that Perl website that promised an interesting tutorial, and I’m gazing at my C# book again and adding up how much free time I have, and I’m ready to try out converting my eBooks to Microsoft Reader format (because I’m not going to have the money for a PDA), and I’m thinking about stuff to write about on this site, and, and…

Vacation time is over for me, it seems.

Thank goodness.

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I can officially say, as my friend Hannah put it, that I used to go to Harding. It’s a heady feeling.

Graduation went well, although my second middle name was butchered when called. I didn’t trip, I didn’t stumble, nothing of the sort. When I get my pictures back that my mother took, I may actually break my rule of not posting pictures of myself on the Internet and slip one in here somewhere… I don’t know.

I didn’t really get to hang out after graduation like I wanted to. My father had to go to work and we only drove a single car, so when he left, we all had to go. I spent my time running around trying to find someone to give her her purse back–all the goodbyes I got to say were en route. That kind of disappointed me. My U.S. History and Sociology teacher came just to see Michael and me graduate; a certain World History teacher with a scary reputation who is leaving after this year looked like he wanted to cry as he shook people’s hands. Dulin had the saddest look on his face…

After we left, I went home and changed clothes (pants, pants, must wear pants!) and headed right back out to eat at Rock Bottom with several of mes amis. Contrary to the name, the food there is delicious. I don’t know about the beers they tout, but their “Penne de Fresco” (or something containing the words Penne and Fresco, anyway) is superb. The lunch was a lot of fun; I got to see Hannah’s family, and, although I just know it’s a figment of my imagination, it seemed everyone was out to make me laugh ridiculously. They succeeded, of course; hell, I’m easy.

On a different note, I thought I might slip in a quick word about a group I found that I like, Conjure One. Their website is useless and annoying (it requires Flash, and thus scripting, which I turn off), but I find the music much more interesting. Actually, it’s just a single guy, formerly of the group Delerium (two of their CDs are also currently on my hard drive, although I haven’t listened to them). I’ve listened to the first five tracks of the self-titled CD Conjure One, and am in love. Despite what this reviewer states are overbearing vocals and cheesy lyrics, I find myself loving the songs I have listened to repeatedly for a week now. The reviewer isn’t wrong; the lyrics are quite corny, but I think the music and the quality of the vocals makes it sound better than the reviewer gives it credit for. Featured on the CD are Poe, Chemda, Sinead O’Connor, and Marie Claire D’Ubaldo, four exceptional singers. I would recommend a download of “Tidal Pool” and “Tears From the Moon”. For now, I’m in love. I suspect, however, that if I ever actually get sick of the CD, which is unlikely but possible, every single one of the flaws the reviewer pointed out will become glaringly obvious, and I won’t be able to ever listen to the damn thing again. Alas, such is the price of musical obsession, eh?

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Last night, I attended the graduation of the Northwest School of the Arts in order to see a few of my friends–Micah, Ayana, and Eddie–graduate. Sonny was also present, as Junior Marshal, one of those who leads in and out the graduating seniors in spiffy little circles to try to give the ceremony a degree of pomp and circumstance, while folks in the back are hollering “oh-two!” and “oh-three!” Anyway, it was the first graduation I’ve attended and was not a part of the ceremony, as I attended Harding University High School’s (my school) last year as a Junior Marshal. It was interesting, all in all. The seniors were well-behaved; I expected someone to act goofy as they went across the stage–it is a school of the arts, including drama, after all–but I was to be disappointed. They had the “Northwest Wind Ensemble” providing music, which consisted of, unsurprisingly, primarily the brass and woodwind sections of their orchestra, with a small amount of percussion. They sounded damn good, particularly when they played a piece called “Tempered Steel”, by Charles R. Young. If not for the Rat squirming incessantly next me, I would have enjoyed it much more, concentration unbroken.

My graduation is tomorrow morning at 08:30. I am convinced that I will be only barely awake, particularly given that I must be there at 07:30, and will probably have to wake up around 05:30 just to make sure everyone else is up and moving on time. Even my father is taking time off from work to go. I’m moderately nervous; I’ve got the classic fear of tripping, or being booed, or spilling something on the gown, or anything else embarrassing. One thing I can be fairly certain of is that none of my family, except my immediate family, of course, will be there. This is a good thing. Much to my mother’s chagrin, I was selective even in what family members received invitations.

I lied. I’m really nervous about graduation. It’s like the whole thing hasn’t really set it yet, like I am incapable of comprehending what this ending and beginning will mean and does mean. The ceremony itself isn’t important to me at all, nor is the sheet of paper I will get that day, but the finality of it, that’s important. Everyone’s making promises about keeping in touch, and we’ll see each other again, and blah, blah, blah, but I know how it goes. Five years ago, I moved about 15 hours away from my home of Dallas, Texas, and I haven’t seen any of those people I missed so much since. Many of my friends are going to the same college, and that college, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is even within the same state as their homes, what they are familiar with. They talk about how we’ll all come back and visit and all that good stuff, but I can’t see myself doing that. Taking the bus from Terre Haute to Chapel Hill or Charlotte or Raleigh would be a long ride; our guests came from Chicago on a bus and spent twenty hours in transit. Catching a ride from a fellow North Carolinian seems unlikely–traditionally, there are only about two folks from North Carolina at Rose-Hulman, sometimes fewer. The odds of me getting cozy enough with that one other person to catch a ride? Slim, but possible. The whole commencement thing just seems so… I don’t know. Final.

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I’m not much of a comment-poster; I feel much freer to spout my shit in my own domain.

Following that same thread, George wrote an entry yesterday that has me thinking. Go read it, if you haven’t already, as I don’t feel like quoting.

Okay, I’ll quote, but I’ll have to quote damn near the whole thing… (sub quotes come from College-Bound Students Often Skip Race Question)

[…] Will Frankenstein, 17, a graduating senior from a New York City public school, said he believes his multiracial background — he’s half Asian, half Caucasian — would have appealed to diversity-seeking colleges. But he decided not to tell them about it.

“I don’t want to be defined by my ethnicity,” said Frankenstein, who is headed to Stanford University. “I have friends who are from all over the world that don’t judge me by my ethnicity. Why should someone else judge me by my ethnicity?”

He also couldn’t be sure which box to check. “If you fill in ‘other,’ is that degrading?” he wondered. “I just didn’t fill it in at all.” […]

Your friends can’t give you a degree. Stanford can give you a degree, and will discriminate as to your abilities to fulfill their academic requirements. Why cite friends’ attitudes as grounds for academic credentials? Stanford is not your friend.

[…] Tao Tan, a high school senior from Plainsboro, N.J., said he supports affirmative action “in theory.” But when it comes to college admissions, he was convinced that too many of his competitors were “gouging the system” by highlighting tenuous family connections that might allow them to portray themselves as black or Hispanic.

Tan, 17, was convinced that admissions officers would hold him “to a higher standard” if he indicated he was Asian. So he didn’t. “My name is not as Chinese as Chang or Lee,” said Tan, who will attend Cornell University. “I picture them sitting in their offices scratching their heads: ‘Is he African? Is he Asian?’ ” […]

Tao, I’ve the luxury of a not-so-black name. Not everyone does.

[…] Julia Edmunds, 17, of New Durham, N.H., was reluctant to come across as just another white girl from tweedy New England. Still, for the colleges that seemed to really want to get to know her — whose applications would allow her to explain how she was home-schooled and low income, that her family was deeply religious — she gladly indicated her race. For the others, she left it blank.

“It seemed like they were treating [race] the wrong way, with the wrong emphasis,” said Edmunds, who will attend Wellesley College in the fall. “Race affects how other people view me, but it doesn’t affect how I view myself.” […]

Like George and Tao, my name isn’t one associated with a particular race. Nor was it even anything I had considered until my buddy LaJuina, who is not particularly black, Asian, or Hispanic, told me of how she filled out two applications for… a large, well-known retail store that sells different types of media, one with the name LaJuina (and her Hispanic-sounding last name), the other with the name Mary Something. Mary got the call-back. This fits the pattern of the workers in said store: there are blacks, but they are guys with names like John, David, whatever. Ethnically-general names. Actually, they aren’t really “ethnically-general” names, are they? They are Western European names, also known in these parts as White Names. This isn’t such a big deal to me except in how I may very well end up depriving someone of a job or position they need more than I do just because my name is something no one will ever have any trouble pronouncing (that would be my full name, Melissa, not my nickname “Lissa”, which is often pronounced “Lisa”… Sorry, that’s a wee bit off topic.).

“Stanford can give you a degree, and will discriminate as to your abilities to fulfill their academic requirements. Why cite friends’ attitudes as grounds for academic credentials?” I think I’m misunderstanding this; since when is race an indicator of academic credentials? And isn’t it the fact that race is considered part of the “academic requirements” (emphasis mine) that is causing this attitude among people my age?

One commentor (commentator?) on George’s page says:

amazing, these quotes of kids hiding their racial identities as though their race is some how not who they are. actually, it’s not so amazing, but a tragedy, nonetheless. if i self-identified as multi-racial i’d check every box that applied. what is there to fear? that folks might find out that people of different races conceive children? the secret is out.

perhaps when we learn that no racial identity exists at the expense of another we won’t be in such a hurry to shed our skins for the myth of colorblindness, or hide our children behind names that look nothing like them.

This really bothered me, as I’ve done the “don’t answer the race question” bit occasionally, and I always frown at the question. My problem is that, here in America, at least, race is supposed to define culture. To accuse us “kids” of feeling that “race is some how not who [we] are” baffles me. Why is the tone of my skin and my hair type part of who I am? And even if it is a part of who I am in a physical sense, why does that have anything to do with where I go to school for post-secondary education? Why don’t they ask me how much I weigh, or if I wear glasses? They can apply an equal number of cultural generalizations and quotas to that as they can the color of my skin. It’s not a matter of “hiding [our] racial identities”; it’s a matter of having hard work during 13 years of schooling being reduced to whether I’m a minority. It’s also running from cultural baggage associated with said identity; I’m black and keep a 5.62 GPA (about a 3.85 on a 4.0 scale), so I must have worked harder to overcome… what? My “disadvantages”? Do you want to go there? Really.

I’ll never forget the girl here in Charlotte, North Carolina, who wasn’t able to get into a good magnet school because the quota for whites had been filled–although there were still a few slots open for blacks. I would fucking hate to be the blacks that filled those slots. And that’s not the only example I can think of, but I won’t belabor a point. So does one racial identity exist at the expense of another? I would rather ask: Does playing up one’s race occur at the expense of another? I wouldn’t automatically say yes or no to either question, but the commentor makes it sound so simple: be Black, be proud. And what? Milk the system for all it’s worth? Even if she takes such a view (I don’t know), I can’t bring myself for follow such a… pragmatic view. Knowing that such a thing may occur as a result of your decision to write “I’m black” all over your applications, are you not, in some way, responsible for the consequences of said action? Maybe I’m just a complete oddball… I dunno.

It’s an interesting topic, nonetheless. I hadn’t realized the “older generation” wasn’t sympathetic (a generalization, of course) to our general disgust (or frustration) with the issue of race in this country, and at college application time in particular.

Update: I just discovered that Trackback apparently doesn’t like me. Well… well… I didn’t care anyway.

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Today was, unofficially, my last day of school. I wish I had the writing ability to reflect beautifully on some of the more crucial things I’ve learned over these past four years, but I don’t think I do.

But I’m going to try anyway.

I’m always surprised at how much I’ve changed from the Jyncos-wearing, picnic-table-top-in-the-quad-dancing, violent, and vulgar freshman I was. I no longer sing or dance in public, I wear my jeans plain, and I’m a little less violent, although my friends from freshman year still flinch occasionally when they think they’ve angered me.

I’ve gained weight, inhibitions, and more fears.

I’ve become more introspective, and lost a lot of confidence in my academic abilities.

I’ve had one (1) boyfriend who was quite confused about his sexuality. I quickly became embarrassed by and bored of him and planted the seed in his head that it should end.

I’ve let my temper kill friendships, some of which I feel I am better without, some of which I miss terribly, but lack the courage to rectify.

I’ve still never asked a guy out, despite several crushes and a something-more-than-a-crush. I still have no idea how to classify the latter, although it hardly matters in any practical sense, as it’s all in my head and I’m moving ten hours away from him.

I’ve lost my certainty about my future career in the process of picking up new interests.

I know I lack focus; I used to be just as cut-throat as the top International Baccalaureate students at my school, willing to cheat, lie, and devastate lives to get to the top.

I’m much more cynical now, and yet more accepting of certain givens. I’ve gone from violent atheist to nodding agnostic that understands too many viewpoints to be able to have all that passion in a religious debate.

There’s less at stake for me now, in so many ways.

I worry that I’m becoming more common–and I am. This same fear made me change my college dreams from M.I.T., which was a goal I’ve worked towards since childhood, not imposed by my parents, to a smaller, lesser-known tech school where I won’t be automatically put on a pedestal by those that see my Bachelor’s or Master’s degree.

I fear responsibility much, much more.

I’ve become much more automatically accepting of racial stereotypes than I used to be; I’ve seen many, many more people that fit those molds than are exceptions.

I’ve become a little more political, capable of watching/listening to a news broadcast once every month and understanding enough of the terms to get a picture of what’s going on. I’ve also become much more critical of the liberal and conservative labels and stereotypes. People, even politicians, who reveal only a single aspect of their personality to the public, are not cut with a cookie-cutter.

I still hate cameras, although now more than ever.

I’ve discovered that there is not a single insult that can be thrown at me that I haven’t applied to myself at some point, even if not recently.

I think about boys now more than I did four years ago. Alas, if wishes were horses…

I’ve started using words and prefixes like “über”, “tee-niny”, and “alas” in everyday speech, along with phrases like “Get thee to a nunnery!” and the word “sexy” like Holden Caufield does in Catcher in the Rye.

I no longer automatically classify women, and in particular my peers, as back-stabbing bitches that should never be told anything personal.

I gained, and promptly lost, for the most part, the ability to keep a secret.

I’ve reached a state of equilibrium with my family–we don’t make many demands on each other anymore.

I’ve become a vegetarian, for reasons even I can’t explain anymore, but I have no major reason to change as of yet and don’t miss meat much at all.

I’ve learned to take everything a teacher says with quite a large grain of salt–most feel they have to make sure they maintain a certain image, and it’s crucial to understand both what that image entails and to what lengths they will go to maintain it. Just like everyone else.

I don’t automatically associate music with culture now–and promptly found I could, in fact, stand rap music.

I’ve become much more of a romantic; I think books like Jane Eyre are sweet, if idyllic, and the adulterous relationship in Patricia Cornwell’s books is entertaining.

I can read about sex, but I can’t stand to watch it. I’m fairly certain there’s a psychological connection there with the different types of input… or something… but all I own are pop-psychology books.

I’ve developed a deep, deep phobia of joint injury. I cringe to see women bend their knees backward when standing, and panic when my knuckles occasionally lock up on me, even for a second. I can’t even read about something as simple as how joints are composed without squirming, and you might as well forgo telling me the details of injuries.

I’m surprised that I haven’t become more or less extroverted over the years. Both the surprise and the lack of change indicate something to me… I’m just not sure exactly what that is… Growth is supposed to be an ongoing process, right?

I’ve discovered just how much more my race matters to others than it matters to me; friends, family, businesses, strangers–it seems the world wants me to fit one of those stereotypes I mentioned previously. And, of course, everyone must remark very loudly how cool it is that I don’t fit the mold.

I’ve learned that I am actually capable of seriously wishing someone ill will. On one level, I don’t like that I can sink to that level, that I can get so angry at an individual (or three) that I can sincerely hope that they fail in life and experience many, many kinds of hurt. On another level… I accept that I feel that way, and rarely do I have much luck deliberately changing how I feel without changing the underlying thoughts… and it’s much easier to hate, in this case.

Is this how I wrap up the last four years of my secondary education? Slink away with (potentially) three diplomas and write about what I learned? This isn’t what I signed up for.

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