Life as an Un-Undergrad

Every graduate and professional student knows the feeling. You know, that feeling of dread when someone tells you that you have to leave the safe confines of your school’s building to find a library book, register your car, or get an ID. The Main Library? Are you sure? Can’t I just find that book at the Law Library? C’mon, I know that place like the back of my left hand. The librarians even gave me a tour and everything. What I am describing is just another part of the isolated life of a graduate student. Not isolated in the normal sense, but isolated in that your life revolves around your particular school- and nothing else.

Everything about graduate and professional school is different from the undergraduate experience. At undergraduate orientation, they gave you a map, and you reveled in the idea that with just this one piece of paper you could find the perfect place to study, go shopping, and buy books. In the isolated world of professional and graduate school, this is not the case. When I mastered the art of knowing every location at the law school, I was set. I was satisfied with shopping anywhere in walking distance, studying at the law library, and was experienced enough to know that buying books was the equivalent of throwing a thousand dollars into a money-eating dumpster.

Meeting people is different, too. Gone are the days of awkward icebreakers about choosing a major or learning someone’s hometown. Meeting friends in graduate school is strategic. Not strategic in a cold way, but strategic in that you are well aware of the fact that the people you meet can potentially become your study partners, or more importantly, they may be the people who accompany you to bar review every Thursday night. Your grades (and perhaps your safe ride home) depend on these people! Thus, while someone may seem like a nice person to befriend, their habit of studying with an iPod can be a real deal breaker.

Meeting neighbors can be a bit strange as well. Living Grad Housing is great, but the silence is deafening. Outside of an occasional scrabble game on the second floor, most people stay to themselves or hang around their small group of trusted, iPod-less study partners. The only thing I know about my neighbor is that he showers at 3AM and has a bad habit of vacuuming in the morning. Could I walk over, and get to know him better? Sure, but I don’t think he’s in the law school, so I doubt he’d be interested.


In all honesty, I do not think that the isolated life is all that bad. Having a small group of friends who have the same goals and attend the same events is often a good thing. However, every now and then, I can’t help but feel like maybe I am missing the opportunity to make some great friends or missing the chance to see some great sights when I am hastily trekking back and forth between the law school and home.

How exactly is "Latino in America" going to work?

Recently, CNN posted an article by somone asking "What is Latino?" (presumably in response to the "Latino in America" series) Honestly, I thought the same thing when I first heard about the idea. Not as easy as lumping the "black community" together to make "Black in America," Soledad.

How exactly is "Latino in America" going to work? We've all felt the wrath from asking a Hispanic person from one country if they were from another country. You'd swear asking a Cuban if they were Puerto Rican or Mexican was an insult or something. I think the best thing to do is correct the person, while not bringing down another Latino group's culture. And God forbid you call a Dominican African American. You'd swear you beat them with a bat or something. I don't throw a fit when someone addresses me as African American and not Haitian. Why? Beacuse I'm black and so are African Americans. Clarify, then move on.

This kind of thinking only brings down the cause for equality. Latino as a group is more powerful than Mexican or Cuban alone---even though they are distinct cultures. This is not a new idea. Go to Brooklyn--if a Jamaican or Haitian gets horribly beat up by the cops--no one says it was because he was Jamaican or Haitian (at least not outside of that community). Why? Because saying the beat down was because he was black is a much more powerful statement in America. People relate to that, and honestly, people who don't know much about your culture will judge the situation as if everyone who looks alike is the same. That's life. I'm not saying that you shouldn't explain that there are very distinct cultures within the phrase "Latino" (or "Black" for that matter). Instead, I'm saying that you shouldn't say- or act- like all Latino groups are not equal. Distancing yourself from other groups- who do share some cultural attributes- is the easiest way to set back the common goals you share.

~ Je pense

Reflecting

I find it sad that the older I become, the more realistic (read: pessimistic) I become. I was just thinking about two people I thought would be perfect together just 4 years ago, and how now I realize that would never work. Too many differences. Not the same culture, color, or beliefs. Back then that was a good thing- a beautiful thing. Now, it seems so impossible and naive. Has age turned me into this cynical person? Experiences? Life? *Sigh* I wanna go back to four years ago...

Veni vidi vici

~ Je pense

Why?

So many annoying things taking place this week. Things that have me thininking-- why?

1. I have an hour long course, and someone showed up 40 minutes late. Stay home, bruh.
2. In the middle of lecture, and someone takes out a sandwich---with a really loud, metallic wrapper. I could tell the prof. was upset but the kid kept going. C'mon now.
3. The shit finally hit the fan for someone I know. You cheated, and she found out. You made your bed, now lie in it. SMH.


~ Je Pense

"Is that the best you've got?"

After weeks of avoiding footage of "real Americans" tea partying around the country, I finally decided to see what all the hoopla was all about. After all, I like parties. And, I must admit, seeing all those men dressed in tacky, walmart-esque flag shirts kind of turned me on. Stars, stripes, and the red and blue all on one shirt! Oh baby, only a real man can pull that off! But I digress...back to the teabagging.

My initial reaction to it all was to just skip those articles when I was browsing online for my daily news fix. Jon & Kate-- check! Something Kardashian-- uh huh! Michelle's new hairstyle/shoes/workout routine--yup! Teabaggers-- I'll pass. But after Joe Wilson's 'You Lie!' outburst and Jimmy Carter's statements, I decided to see what is really up with all these angry, flag-wearing dittoheads (Did they not get the message that being angry on t.v. is only for black women on reality shows? Paging Omarosa or every black girl on Top Model). After brushing up on the teabagging movement, I started thinking, "Is that the best you've got?"

Listen, if I'm going to pack up my stuff, hop in the truck, and drive to DC to protest taxes, ACORN, health care, immigrants, bail outs, elitists, abortion, and black presidents- my sign would have to be on point. Communist? Socialist? Elitist? Are we just throwing out things that end in -ist without making distinctions? Can one man be all of these things at once? What's next, Kenyan-ist?...Oh wait, Glenn Beck just said he was a racist. Add that one to the list!!!

While thrown off by many of the signs, I couldn't help but be floored by the signs portraying the Prez as Hitler. WHOA! WHAT? Did I miss something in sixth grade? Hitler was down with the brown? Did he and Jesse Owens have a beer summit after the Olympics or something to celebrate Jesse's performance? Stupid public schools. They've failed me again. I mean, c'mon, teabaggers. Hitler? How cliche. Out of all the psycho, change-bringing men in history, you choose the one that actually liked people who look more like your average teabagger than an ACORN pimp ring facilitator? Couldn't you find someone more commi/soci/elitisty/kenyany/racisty?

Oh, how about Qaddafi?!? Libya's kinda Kenya, right? Or Castro? I hear some Cuban women have abortions all the time. That will prove your 'baby killer' signs right. Oh...no...I've got it! Duvalier. Definitely, Duvalier. Not the baby (that's child play), but the daddy! Brainwashing school children, control of the media, noirism, and I think someone said tonton macouts translates to czar. And he's black, too!!! Holy Mackerel, I think I'm on to something! Where's the nearest Walmart? I need to buy a shirt...


Veni vidi vici,

Je Pense

Je Pense is a twenty-something know-it-all with too much sarcasm, too much on the mind, and too little time. Follow on fobblogette.blogspot.com.