Ivy Isn't Always Greener

So here I am in the library, two days before Christmas, studying for my last final exam. The halls buzz with pretentious students eagerly memorizing more physics equations and reciting Latin phrases and boasting about their high GPAs. The Culties all call me up via Skype, and I see their bright beautiful faces beaming with laughter, full after a dinner of seven different types of tofu at our favorite restaurant. There’s absolutely nowhere I’d rather be than on those soft carpeted floors of my best friends’ house back in the Midwest, lying on sleeping bags and playing truth or dare like we are thirteen again. But, alas… Oh how I hate school right now.

In my first weeks of school, I learned to hate the Ivy League. It’s this elite illusion, a way to simultaneously enlighten and torture the world’s brightest and/or richest while all the while making you question if you even fit into either of these categories. Someone’s always going to one up you: the girl sitting next to you in a seminar already published two novels, the student sharing your desk (if you are even lucky enough to grab one) at the library is writing his thesis in seven languages, that person has better shoes, this person has a private jet… The competition here just felt way out of my league. Pun intended.

And then I got my first essay back. For weeks, I slaved over the paper. Picking perfect adjectives to modify my nouns, strong verbs to excite my sentences, brilliant quotations to make my IQ seem higher than it actually is. That was why I came to Columbia after all, to prove myself as the Pulitzer Prize winning author I aspire to be. But, of course, a week later I get the paper back, exhilarated at flipping the cover page to discover my grade and read my praise: B-.

What? No! That can’t be right! My teacher said I was a talented writer. WHAT?

The B- haunted me through the weekend: never before had a received such a low grade on a written assignment, let alone one worth 25% of my grade. I walked across with my head down, swiveling between high school valedictorians, star athletes, international superstars. Will I ever be good enough?

Seventy two hours later I sat down with my teacher, discussed the issues of my paper, and arranged a process for the re-write. He assured me that “a B- at Columbia is much better than an A at most other schools.” I slouched down on the library steps and wondered how I would explain that to Harvard Law.

For the rest of the semester, I labored even more meticulously over my work, ensuring that everything was not just perfect, but even better. As well as I could write, someone else could probably write better, but I wasn’t going to let that show. So what if they went to an elite boarding school? So what if they have the highest academic ranking in the country? So what if their family name is recognized worldwide? Suddenly, I regained my footing in the competition. Yeah, I may not have come from an even starting ground as the rest of my league, but I sure could catch up, and I was determined win.

Perhaps I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t just discover I got an A in the class. That my hard work paid off and I felt I earned what I deserved. But it did and I did. I worked harder for that A than almost any other grade in my entire life; seeing that letter brought a bigger smile to my face than it ever did on a high school report card.

And while this could have happened at any school, in any class, it happened here. I still maintain that the Ivy League is overrated, with its nonsensical traditions and proudly displayed green flags, but I guess I’ve learned not to hate it quite so much.

Only Got 4 Minutes?

There’s never enough time.

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting next to two elderly women on the subway. One of them arranged her floral-patterned suitcase on an empty seat as her friend explained to her how to transfer trains and then get home on the bus.

“This was so lovely. Thanks so much for having me,” the visitor acknowledged as she blinked back tears.

“No, thank you for coming! Remember, there’s always room for you in my apartment,” the New Yorker confirmed as she ran her fingers through her thin gray hair.

“No, really, thank you, I’d love to come back soon…” The lady trailed off into a story about her grandchildren and her cats and her reading group.

Before they knew it, the train arrived at 72nd street and the extended goodbye had to come to a close. I watched them compare their matching bracelets (at this point I may or may not have almost cried…) and wave goodbye slowly as they parted ways.

“There’s never enough time,” The New Yorker sighed.

And I had to agree. No matter how much we do, how much we pack into our already unbelievable busy schedules there’s never enough time. There’s never enough time to spend with other people, never enough time for ourselves.

As I travelled home for Thanksgiving, I realized that I never truly have enough time. The night before I left school, I stayed up all night talking with my friends; the night I got home I talked with my family for hours, woke up to the same routine, spent the rest of the weekend sharing stories until Sunday night, where my friends and I chatted until dawn.

And what came out of those endless talks? We just wanted more. More time. More stories. More reasons to love each other.

As I returned to New York, I returned to late nights eating ramen and ice cream out of the carton, never wanting to sleep because I have to much to say to my friends, so much to laugh about, so much to plan and explore.

Every day goes by so quickly.

There’s never enough time.

Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh...

An older relative recently asked me, “What do you do for fun? Are you on a sports team? In the band?” And while I scanned through my mind, envisioning the rainbow of iCal tasks and events I accomplish everyday, I could not come up with a solid answer. I could talk about how I write for some blogs (let’s ignore the fact November was a homework-heavy month and I kind of took a writing vacation…) or how I go running to clear my mind or how I arrange my schedule to allow adequate time to visit museums and galleries or how I never let my camera out of my hand. I could have mentioned the fact that I love reading a great novel or revealed that I enjoy creating new pasta recipes and I adore blasting music for spontaneous dance parties in my room. However, in trying to make my interests sound appealing, I felt like most of my pursuits were rather trivial.

“I like community service…” I offered. Which is true, I spend six hours a week teaching kids to read, write, and speak English but I guess that’s not quite the same as training for the varsity volleyball team. He looked in satisfied. “And I sing in chorus.” There. I’m part of a group. Ha. See, I do have fun!

“Do you want to be a singer?” No. I sit there and hope that no one really hears me, actually…

“Well, actually, I just have a wide variety of interests, so I don’t really concentrate on one I guess. I want to be a writer…” I’m not going to lie, I felt pretty insecure.

Why can’t I have fun? Since when does an eighteen year old in New York City not know how to have fun?

I continued pondering the question as I made my way to The Met the next week. The thing about The Met is that it’s just too big, too grand and overwhelming to see all at once. Even if you walk through all the galleries, there’s no possible way you can internalize everything you’ve seen. So I choose a period to focus on each visit. Sometimes I want to go back to see my old friend Botticelli and escape into his mythical world, other times I want to visit my ladies Frida and Georgia and maybe even Vincent or Pablo, just enjoy the moderns, and other days I find myself moved by Manet or Daumier or Redon or Watteau or anyone else who picked up a paintbrush or some charcoal or a camera and decided to capture the very essence of his or her existence.

A great work of art remains unmatched, unchallenged, unafraid to exist and persistent in its own reality. You can walk between Dali and Miro and question your morality, your desires, your future or you can just admire the colors. You can walk past a Monet and think that a poster with his floral pattern would perfectly match the décor in your powder room or you can really look at it. You can look at it and see the signature in the corner, you can know that Claude’s hand once signed this very canvas, you can consider everything that ran through his head as he created this scene, you can imagine the thousands of people who have seen this painting, the thousands of feet who have stood in your exact same spot and the thousands of eyes which have glanced at the paint and thought something about their lives.

I’m not a great artist. I grew up with a crayon in one hand and a paintbrush in the other, but I’ve never completed a Met-worthy masterpiece. However, I find that the solace I discover in these creations, in artworks at the Art Institute in Chicago or the Guggenheim in Venice or the Reina Sofia in Madrid or even a tiny gallery in SoHo, somehow makes me a better person. Art makes me think of the greater world around me, an individual’s ability to create and impact the world. You look at the brush strokes, these thin lines in the paint, and know what one person accomplished this, someone had this idea and shared it with the world. Art inspires me. It makes me want to do good things, to see the world and learn languages and teach others what I know and create my own masterpieces, whatever they may be.

And while I know a great majority of people who would not classify visiting a museum as “fun,” I find that that’s where I’m happiest. That’s where I find inspiration and ideas to enhance other aspects of my life, bringing fun and joy to whatever I do, whether it be jogging through Central Park to and from Museum Mile, going out with friends, or just singing a little more loudly in my choir rehearsals.

How do You Measure a Year?

Time is a very weird thing. It’s this odd little ticking that we can never stop, that we can never control, that never disappears yet we never fully gain a sense of it.

I cannot believe that it is November 4th yet again. It makes absolutely no sense to me. It seems illogical that 365 days have passed since we elected our newest president, since I was sitting in my living room, toasting with my friends and holding hands and sniffling and Barack Obama was officially as the first African American president of the United States of America, land of the free.

And now, 525,600+ minutes later I wonder what has happened in all that time.

Days after the presidential election we learned that Prop 8 passed in California. Weeks later I attended a Prop 8 protest in a plaza in Chicago. Weeks after that I went shopping on Black Friday on the Magnificent Mile while news reports continued warning us about the doomed economy. I soon became old enough to stay out past legal curfew, buy cigarettes and porn and lottery tickets. New Years hit and I was left celebrating the last year of the decade with the same group who helped me welcome in 1999. Snow covered the ground and I quit kickboxing to become an avid Scrabble player. Snow melted and I still stayed inside, preferring to be the host than leave the coziness of my home. I travelled to Peru and decided I could actually influence the world. I decided I’d mêlée with the Ivy League in New York. I cut down a tree. I graduated High School and worked twelve hours a day for twelve weeks. I walked a marathon and a half. I got in trouble for writing too much. I went to the zoo. I packed up half my wardrobe and flew to the greatest island in the world to further my education. I unsuccessfully stalked Padma down 5th Avenue. I survived my first round of midterms.

And now what? How has my chain of insignificant events helped the world in any way? In the last year, how much has Barack’s message of change, and hope, and si se puede, affected our daily lives? How much time does it take to improve the world and why aren’t we all taking greater steps towards achieving this?

In complete repetition of last year, it was with great sadness I learned that Maine’s voters decided to ban same sex marriage, exactly like the injustice in California a mere 365 days ago. In the time of Obama have we not learned anything about fairness? About equality and optimism and faith? Can we not learn to merely trust and accept each other for our differences recognize each other’s true potentials as human beings?

Time is truly an odd concept. It keeps going, whether we like it or not. And bad things will keep happening as the clock ticks away, each second marking another moment in time we can never retrieve. And while I can recognize many drastic and positive changes in my life since this time last year, acknowledging the fact that not much has been altered, for myself or my community, upsets me. It makes me want to do more. To be more vocal, to express my opinions more openly and have more influence. I’m inspired to take more action, to put my full capacity into everything I do, make it the best I can make it, and perhaps make an impression on the world in the next 525,600 minutes.

Boo Yorkers!

I’ve always loved Halloween: the weeks in October dedicated to picking out the perfect costume(s), the pumpkin-flavored goodies constantly surrounding me, the excuse to eat candy throughout November (after it’s been organized in order of deliciousness, of course—Reese’s at the top, Starbursts at the bottom).

While I haven’t been trick-or-treating in years it seems as if the joy of Halloween never left me. During my high school years, I always arrived at school fully costumed (Elphaba, Carrie Bradshaw, Ballerina, Alex/Jennifer Beals from Flashdance…) and managed to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve in a fully festive manner.

This year, however, brought new challenges and excitement to the 31st of October. Unsure of the typical college protocol, I began talking with my friends mid-September about costume ideas. As the week of Halloween approached we still had yet to put together a solid plan. Hence, we found ourselves in Times Square the night before the big holiday, desperately searching for some variety of clothing to call a costume.

As we pushed through the crowds of tourists and fought to cross streets without traffic, my friends kept grumbling in frustration, “This is ridiculous! We live here! Why can’t people just move at a regular pace?” We proceeded to the center of the square and had a foreign tourist snap a picture of us with the glimmering city in the background. Snickering, we trotted down Broadway, laughing at the clueless visitors to our city, trying our best to remain oblivious to the greatness that was the center of “our” city.

We stopping in a souvenir shop, desperately hoping that between all the blatant tackiness we could find costume-worthy materials. And suddenly, between all the tawdrily decorated mugs and obnoxious postcards, green foam Statue of Liberty hats caught our New Yorker eyes.

“Guys, how ridiculous would it be if we wore these?” Nods. Many nods. We explained that we were from “uptown” and “just being silly” as we bought I ♥ NY shirts to complement the crowns.

On the last night of October, three girls sat on my floor decorating premium New York tourist apparel with gobs of glitter glue and even more enthusiasm. We paraded across campus, down into the subway, and back out into midtown (where we were swarmed with cameras trying to capture our ridiculousness—superb celebrity moment) wearing an eclectic conglomeration of everything we were and everything we said we were not.

Feeling ridiculous was not even an option—everywhere we walked we were surrounded by Lady GaGas, vampires, bunnies, and even a seven-foot-tall baby.

And now, while I vow never to wear the shirt again (it makes an excellent chair cover) and keep the foam crown looped around my bookshelf as nothing more than a memory, I realize the extent to which I love Halloween. It has nothing to do with the candy and parties (well, maybe) but so much to do with just being able to laugh at yourself, giving us a break from the seriousness that is reality and just allowing us to be spontaneous and impractical, non-judgmental and free. And while I cannot advocate a human ostrich riding the cross-town bus on a daily basis, the one night a year we get to step outside of ourselves and just enjoy being whomever we want to be should never be taken for granted!