Monthly Archives: September 2010

Welcome to Blogs@Baruch!

This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging.

I over-analyze everything to death. A single thought, idea, situation, gesture, or question, enters my mind and I will process it through multiple perspectives. Over-analyzing is not perfect because there are limits to the number of views I have, which omits the foreign perspectives and usually the most obvious views. The over-analyzing can be advantageous at times but the negative results become the fixation of my over thinking. My beliefs on the origin of this obsession, which might have also been skewed due to over-analyzing, began in school.

In grades four to six of elementary school I belonged to a specialized class. The class of thirty or so students varied slightly from year to year; a handful of students left and joined between the years. At the end of my elementary years, I was active, loud, spontaneous, and mischievous. My belief is that the isolated environment rendered me naive.

When I made the transition to middle school, the enormity of the world became apparent. My natural defense was to withdraw. My new-found introverted personality left me with little to do but watch, observe, think, and let my imagination wander. It seemed inevitable that I would develop an obsession with over-analyzing everything.

Entering Francis Lewis High School with its open atmosphere and welcoming students made it hard not to make friends. Despite a short period of relapse after transferring to the Bronx High School of Science, I found friends who made it virtually impossible to be alone. Although I cannot say that I have completely strayed from my introverted self, I can say I have made progress and wish to continue that process.

Baruch College and its courses have an emphasis on public oration and presentation. These emphases will provide the motivation and the necessity to improve myself, which will benefit me in my career and personal life. The departure from my detached self doesn’t mean leaving and forgetting everything; the attributes like patience, tolerance, and over-analysis would hopefully useful and beneficial.

My only hopes and concerns for my first semester are to familiarize myself with college and embrace what Baruch has to offer.

I’ve never been a fan of having to describe myself. It’s such a broad question, however; I can appreciate the vagueness as well. That in itself might begin to describe me.

I shy away from talking loudly in public but I have a flair for the dramatic (in my mind, anyway). I might spend a sunny day, reading a mystery novel but the minute it starts to rain; I’m ready to go for a walk. My DVR is set to record crime procedurals, teen dramas, and reality shows (and when everything doesn’t fit on my DVR, I catch up online).

Yet, that’s only the surface. I genuinely have an appreciation for learning. My parents and high school mentors have instilled in me the values of determination, integrity, and responsibility. My parents have constantly taught me achieving success that is meaningful to me will only be a result of my own dedication. I choose to believe them completely because their own determination and success is something I have grown up witnessing.

High school was one of the most defining experiences for me. I grew into my sarcastic attitude and learned to use wit in a way that is polite (and not take on a tone that I was often grounded for as a child). My interests in English, History, and Business came about in high school as well (not to mention my general disinterest in math and science.) Responsibility and integrity are two of the most valuable ideals I graduated with.

I’m hoping for college to be just as defining as my childhood and high school were. I want to learn new things, meet new people, and take my values to the next level. As most freshmen are, I am obviously concerned about grades and being able to cope with the intensity of a college atmosphere. However, I know college is just a new experience and I’m open to all it has to offer (even Pre-calculus).

Welcome to Blogs@Baruch!

This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging.

I am from a Jewish community in Queens where religion is a key factor in the way I run my life. After I graduated high school I studied overseas at a rabbinical studies program, basically covering the deep meaning of what it means to be Jewish. This year of change and identity search is the reason I am who I am today. Some experiences included going to the ‘shuk’ or an outdoor market with all kinds of fruits and bakery stands run by hardcore Israelis. By going to the ‘shuk’ you see how business was managed at least 50 years ago in the average marketplace in the world. At these flea market styled booths there are no computers or any advanced technology in place. The advertising that is done is the shouting of the products’ prices. What made Israel change me was my ability to explore my religion with the access to speak with almost 100 experienced rabbis everyday. My mindset has changed from an American view of the world, where money is the goal, to a religious view of the world; where the world revolves around faith and action.

I was expecting college to be my chance to delve into the real world and meet people with different mindsets as me, which unfortunately I have never met due to the uniform ideology I received as a student in Jewish schools. For the first semester of college I was planning on attending a wide range of classes because I am unsure of the major I am looking to study. I also want to join many clubs and see what really interests me and can help me earn a decent livelihood in our tough economy. Even though it is difficult to come to college after being in a religious society, I am excited to explore what the world has to offer; especially a business world that technology is taken advantage of and where everyone is diverse.

I was seventeen and it was simply the freest I had ever felt. I remember the kindness of people, the list of characters that were never to return as sojourners into my perceptual consciousness. I yearn for the gravely massage of asphalt through the bottoms of my shoes. I miss the land.

The way that mountains slope and sink into the heartland, only to reappear looming as the snow-capped Rockies. I missed the flatness of the plains allowing more sky to exist than land, adding divinity to the stars of the night sky; more concise and awe-inspiring than any I had gazed upon before. I missed the Mississippi in the four o’ clock sunshine, so wrenching and lovely that I abandoned a thumbed-down car that would have carried me one hundred and fifty more miles, just so I could caress the whims of the nation’s soul, if only to absorb the Twain and Kerouac. My night stranded awake in Las Vegas when down the long street came the moon and I turned my back to it and walked. So many nights like that one, I would watch my feet as I hurried down an obscured alleyway, looking for a place to sleep, but coming up with a dead end, where I’d trip into a dark brown pot-hole puddle, soaking my shoe, then I’d hear a noise, and look up to see a distorted gape and eyes, clearly myself but parts that had been previously unknown, making my self-image twist like a flame in the wind. The way the heat pressed down on my psyche through the arid beauty of the Mojave, and finally the faint glimmer of the Pacific after a week of hard travelin’ —the knowledge that there was only more to come.

In Long Beach, after a stay with a friend, a local cop picked me up for being a minor out-of-state hitchhiking on the 405, which turns into the 605, which turns into I-5, which goes deep into the Pacific Northwest, where I was headed next. After some hungry hours at the station, I was put in a foster home in Inglewood, Los Angeles for the better of a week. There a public supervisor came every eight hours and everyone’s name, DOB, and social worker/parole officer was on a large pallid chalkboard in the living room. Luckily, I had come into some money en route by playing guitar, harmonica, and singing American traditional songs, and thus could afford a ticket back.

Now I’m in college and I have no time; I can’t hold down a job, I can’t read, I can’t write, I can’t focus on anything, let alone attain the daily visceral catharsis of survivalism. I think I’ll either drop out or become a drug-addled robot.

Consider this a response to the blogs that I’ve read. This poem might not have great poetical elements but it was given to me by one of those amazing people that I mentioned in the previous blog. It helped him, and it helped me. Now I’m just passing the love along.

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will

When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill

When the funds are low, and the debts are high

And you want to smile, but you have to sign

When care is pressing you down a bit

Rest if you must, but don’t you quit

Life is strange, with its twists and turns

As everyone of us sometimes learns

And many a failure turns about

When they might have won, had they stuck it out

Don’t give up, though the pace seems slow

You might succeed with another blow

Often the goal is nearer than

It seems to a fain and faltering man

Often the struggler has given up

When they might have captured the Victor’s Cup

And they learned too late when the night slipped down

How close they were to the Golden Crown

Success is failure turned inside out

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt

And you never can tell how close you are

It may be near when it seems afar

So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit

It’s when things seem worse, that you mustn’t quit!

Author Unknown

Use this wisely.

Journal #1

My name is Jieqiong but you can call me Summer.  I grew up in China and was raised by my Grandma.  When I was born, my grandparents wanted to leave me on the street because I was a girl.  My Mother went against their wishes and kept me.  Without my Mother’s help, I might have ended up working in a sweatshop or worst.  To make sure I had a future, my parents came to America where I can get a free education and go to college.  My parents left their families and friends behind to come to a world that they barely knew.  My parents overworked themselves to put a roof over my head and food in my mouth. My parents have sacrificed so much of themselves for me and I am grateful for it.  This support creates a pressure to work hard and return the favor because you cannot live your life being in debt to other people.

I was expecting college to be similar to high school in the environment but different from high school in teaching.  Many people complain that CUNYs do not have the typical college experience.  After four weeks at Baruch, i disagree with those people.  although Baruch does not have a large campus, it does have a lot of student actives.  There are always clubs or organizations promoting events and welcoming you to their clubs.  Recently I rushed for a co-ed fraternity and i am having a lot of fun.  Everybody at Baruch is very nice and helpful and it makes Baruch seem like a second home.  Unlike the teachers in high school, professors at Baruch have a passion for their subject and they also have special knowledge in the subject.  this makes learning and taking the class very enjoyable.

My hope is to keep my grades up and survive my first semester of college.  I am very worry about my writing skills because writing is such important skill for most of the college classes.

My favorite song at this moment is “Go Away” by 2NE1.  2NE1 is a Korean pop music group.