James Cheng

As I sit here in the library typing away at my final blog entry, I cannot help but feel that I somehow allowed time to pass by without my notice. Let’s see… Freshman Convocation was on August 25, 2010 I believe. So it’s been close to three months since that very first day of school. Three months, three months of school, homework, food, and sleep. Three months of constantly telling myself not to allow procrastination to get the better of me like it did before. Three months of telling myself to do what I need to do and allow everything else to fall into place. Things fell, but where did they fall?

Today is my last day of Freshman Seminar and the last day of classes will be here in no time. This term is rapidly coming to an end. There are only a couple of major assignments left, finals, and then I’ll be done. I guess in terms of schoolwork, I did what I wanted to do. I turned in most of my homework, on time when I could. I think I did fairly well on my presentations. What else did I do? Was turning in homework and making presentations all I did over the last three months?

I guess in doing homework, I did manage to make use of the school’s resources, the Honors lounge, the lounge areas in school, and especially the library. The library was a particularly useful resource; everything from the books themselves to the study rooms to the computers on the second floor proved to be useful at one point or another. Not to mention the serenity it offered from hustle and bustle of the big city. These last three months, I was probably in the library everyday that it was open, staring at my laptop, trying to do that history analysis paper or to write this final blog entry.

Okay, I did my homework, made my presentations, but did I really learn anything? How am I different from when I first entered Baruch those short three months ago? Let me see… I think I can honestly say that my outlook has changed somewhat. At the very least I no long see school as a prison where I just have to serve my sentence and wait to be released. But I think more importantly than what is why. Why did my outlook change?

Privilege and Responsibility! The answer is simply that. I am given so many privileges and opportunities. The opportunity to attend college for free, the privilege of having an incredible library within such close proximity to the school. With so many resources, it is my responsibility to give back to the community however I can. Whether it is creating a community service project for next semester, joining a club that engages in community service this term or simply not wasting time procrastinating.

The community service project and just Freshman Seminar as a whole has helped me realize that my time does not belong to me. That when I waste my time sitting at home doing nothing I am not only neglecting my responsibility to myself but I am neglecting my responsibility to the larger community.

Honestly, I don’t know what my role is, whether in the Baruch community or in the broader community. I mean I know bits and pieces but I can’t seem to piece together the full picture. I know that in Baruch, at least part of my role is to study hard and to maintain a fair GPA. Making a friend here and there would not hurt either but aside from that I don’t know anymore.

When I was in high school, my main purpose was to study hard and try to maintain a good GPA. Other than that, my high school life was just hanging out with friends and killing time. I could have done more during my time in high school but I was being lazy. I did not know what to do and did not feel like getting out of my comfort zone and finding out.

This time, I want to do thing differently. So for my freshman year I signed up for a number of different clubs in Baruch. I went to the information session for a couple of them and found something that I was interested in. Right now, I devote a good portion of my time outside the classroom with my chosen club.

As for my role in the broader community, I think I should volunteer my time to helping my community. But I do not want to just get involved in anything; I want to spend my time working for a cause that I genuinely believe in. As of right now, I do not know that cause is but I will volunteer regardless and see if I cannot find something that I like to do and is beneficial to the community.

Hello, my name is James Cheng and it is a pleasure to meet you. I reach out my hand but nobody reaches back. This has been my fear for a very long time, reaching out and falling short before I manage to reach anyone. I do not when this fear first came up but I know I was not born with it. I remember being timid when I was very young. My mother would always say to me, “James, you have to be more confident, you’re going to be a man someday, and you will have to support your own family and your parents.” My mother telling me to be a man, well I suppose someone had to say it.

My father, for as long as I can remember, always worked until late hours of the night. So I only got to see him once a week, on Tuesday, but I always had fun when I saw him. He used to take me to the park and push the swing for me. After swinging for a while, I would get tired and he would take me home for a family dinner.  There was not that much to talk about back then so we were mostly silent during the walk home.  But when we did talk, I remember the conversations were very short because I was not that fluent in Chinese and he was not fluent in English. As time went on, my English improved while my Chinese worsened. Pretty soon, short conversations turned in to no conversations, simply a greeting, “Baba.” In my freshman year of high school I had basically forgotten all my Chinese and everything I said was in English. English had become my first language and the language I deferred to when I was talking to anyone. But when I saw my father, I could not say a word, I knew that if I said something, he would respond in Chinese and I would not be able to reply. So whenever I saw my dad, I would simply smile and pretend like I was doing my homework.

As I withdrew from my father, my father withdrew from me. After a while, he stopped talking to me as well and when we saw each other, he would smile and wave hello and that was it. I was completely okay with this until I had Creative Nonfiction in my senior year. My teacher would talk about trying to understand other points of view. This reminded me of my father. I was always thinking about how I would look if I could not respond to what he was saying but I never thought about it from his perspective. How would he feel if I said something and he could not respond? Would he feel embarrassed like I would? Would he feel more embarrassed? That was when I realized that it was not the language barrier that kept us from talking to each other; it was we. No matter how difficult it might be to respond, I realized that it is much worse to not even start the conversation. If the conversation never begins we would never know what might or might not happen.

I will push myself to reach out not just to my father but to other people. And if they don’t reach back that’s fine. But, hopefully, they will.