Monthly Archives: October 2010

College is a very new environment and there anew many new opportunities here. One such example is the clubs here. Something I joined was SASA, the South Asian Student Association here at Baruch. This club is directed more towards South Asians, but anyone can join. SASA holds a lot of fundraisers and events- one such event they want to hold is the multicultural show, something I hope to take part in. There will be a lot of dancing, singing, and performing of all things South Asian; I’d like to do a dance with the boys’ team. I did it for four years in high school, and I even choreographed a dance in my senior year, and I hope to continue doing that throughout college. I know that joining SASA will be an experience I’ll never forget.

Guys here is my picture I couldnt upload it 🙂

Charles Li Discussion Panel:

I thought the discussion panel was pretty interesting, though I thought that he could have elaborated more on his experiences in the Communist school. The guest speakers were interesting, especially the professor that teaches here (her name slips me) because she seems to have a similar experience to us, or at least me. I also had a little trouble associating myself with particular groups and defining myself in the beginning. Overall, the discussion was interesting, and even though some people were not paying attention, I think it turned out well.

My name is Rabi. I am 18 years old and the youngest of 5 children. I have 4 older brothers, all of whom are three years apart. I was born in the Bronx, moved to Queens when I was four and have lived there ever since. I am an outspoken individual with varying talents and hobbies. Having four older brothers I love to play and watch sports. When I was fifteen my brother started to teach me how to box, I can throw a mean straight right and watching boxing is one of my favorite pass times. I like watching football and basketball and I love to play handball. another passion I adopted from one of my brothers is my love for sci-fi, I cant explain why I like it so much, I just do. I love to play violin and am learning to play piano. I love reading, some anime, but mostly historical fiction novels, I also love archeology, I would love to visit the pyramids of Egypt, the ruins of Greece and Rome and travel all over the world. I plan on living in the Netherlands for a year after college. I am a very loyal individual. My freinds and family mean the world to me and I would do anything for them. I am willing to try anything at least once, you never know how it will change you, trust me, I know. Over all I am a very complex person, but this is the best way I can describe myself. My name is Rabia.

I hope college is going to be a great experience but it is never going to compare to my experience in high school. High school was the greatest times of my life and I didn’t realize it until recently. While I was at high school, I hated attending school and going to football practice. Sometimes I would even get myself sick thinking about going to practice. I just always couldn’t wait until I got out of high school so I can just go to college. Now that I’m in college I wish I could go back to high school.

I didn’t realize how much I missed high school until I recently visited Farrell with my friends which put everything in whole new perspective. Walking through the halls made me remember the fun times I had in high school with my friends joking around in class and hanging out at lunch. But the thing I miss most about high school is playing football. I went to a Farrell game two weeks ago and my coaches allowed me to stay on the sideline during the game. When I walked out with the team to start the game and the crowd was yelling it brought me back to my years of playing football. I remember I used to get nervous before the game and the crowd would send chills down my back. There was nothing better than making a big play that made the crowd go crazy. Practices were even fun because my coaches would say the dirtiest, most inappropriate things. It’s really true when people say “you miss something when it’s gone”. I just wish I could have realized that in high school so I could’ve enjoyed every moment of it.

I’ve said many many times before that my motto was “Don’t worry, be happy.” I said that before and that still holds true today. Today I want to talk about having a good time. I consider myself a guy that doesn’t worry all the time because I love being happy! You know what? So should all of you! Why? Well, I’ll tell you why. think about it. If you’re not havin a good time, what else can you have? A bad time! And I’m sure nobody loves bad times, now do they? When you’re in a bad mood, everything is upside down. Nothing seems to go the way it’s supposed to. On the other hand, if you’re in a good mood, everything seems to go so much more smoothly. Everyone seems nicer, you are nicer, the whole WORLD is NICER!!! Let’s give yall an example. Let’s say you’re cooking. If you’re angry about something, then you’re gonna put too much of everything or too little of everything and nothing will come out right. And then someone will eat your food and get angry because it is ANGRY food. However if you’re in a good mood and you’re cooking, then your food will turn out delicious, well maybe not if you’re a terrible cook, but even if the person who eats your food is about to puke it out, he’ll be happy because it will be HAPPY food. So that’s why you should all try and be happy. Sure it’s natural to be sad sometimes when bad things happen. Cry. Let it out. Don’t bottle it up. It’s weird to be happy all the time. But don’t be sad all the time either, because as the popular saying goes, behind every cloud there is a silver lining. So don’t worry and be happy. Have a good time. Trust me; it’s worth it.

Here’s a picture of me that I think shows that I do in fact adhere to the motto: “Don’t worry, be happy.”

I consider myself a “twinkie” or a ”banana” because as an Asian, yellow outside, I’ve pretty much been Americanized hence being white inside. I barely kept in touch with my Asian culture. It’s always been easy for me to get depressed; I realized what depression was when I was seven years old, when my father passed away because of cancer. While growing up I was a very mischievous and messed up kid. I would get into fights; pull tons of pranks, one of which was pull the fire alarm at the end of my street. My friends and I would chuckle when the firefighters came and went “where’s the fire?” We’d end up burning things for fun, by stacking paper or whatever was burnable. There was one time when this guy (seriously messed up in his head), took a brick and smashed it on a baby bird that was lying on the floor. I just watched, felt disgusted looking at its splattered guts. During the times in school, I didn’t get a long with people that well. I got bullied some of the time, and I felt horrible. I wanted to belong somewhere, but I ended up being a lone most of the time. When high school came along, I was still a coward for my first two years, but then I just couldn’t handle it anymore and I use violence to settle things. And what do you know; it worked out well for me. People backed off, I got time to settle in and stuff, but my socializing skills weren’t that good. I’ve always worried about school, and for the most part did good, but I ended up slipping, I’m screwing myself over and my stress level just continues to build up. Then I end up getting angry and pissed too, and I usually get depressed also. I just wish there medicine or something to grow brain cells.

Post a monologue you’ve developed in your seminar, along with a self portrait (which can be a photograph, an image, a cartoon or some other depiction of how you see yourself).

I’m the typical teenager who likes to do the typical things. I like to eat, sleep and go out. I graduated from William Cullen Bryant High School in Long Island City. With a 40% drop out rate, it wasn’t the best, but I have to say it wasn’t the worse either. I was able to meet friends and I was able to explore. I found out what I liked and what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I found out that I loved poetry. None of that Shakespeare sonnet stuff or Ayaz’s poems. I love real legit modern poetry. I also started planning my career path at the end of my High School years. I want to be an event planner. I want to intern at different companies and land a real part time job before I turn 20 and a full time job when I hit 23. It doesn’t seem quite realistic, but when I look back at what my siblings did, I start to believe in myself.

Two of my sisters also graduated from Baruch. They both found internships and worked their way up to a part time position then full time before they even turned 22. At such a young age, they found out what they wanted to do and never stopped pushing forward to achieve it. They are who I want to become when I grow up. Just like how everyone else looks up to someone, my two sisters are my role models.

To hit that level of success like my sisters did, I know I’ll have to open up more and start networking. I knew I had to get involved with things so I basically signed up for every club there was at Baruch. Even though I haven’t had the time to actually participate in every club, I can now proudly say that I am part of the USG Campus Affairs Committee and one of a million photographers of the Ticker.

I am the typical undergrad student. I am no different from any other student here at Baruch. I am lazy, I procrastinate but at the end of the day I work hard to play hard. And like everyone else, I learned to love Baruch College.

This enrichment workshop was interesting at times. I thought it was longer than it needed to be. It was unnecessary to have the panelist. I didn’t see their function at all in the whole discussion. Stan Altman, the moderator, and Charles N. Li had a very interesting discussion about reality and identity. Mr. Altman talked about how the difference between a dog’s reality and a human’s reality can result in the dog saving the human’s life. Mr. Li talked mainly about how a person can be good or evil. Identity is an indefinite thing and it changes along with culture and time. He struggled to find his own existence when he was a young child living in China. The most interesting point that was brought up was the difference in philosophy between East Asia and the West which is that people in the West are born without the question of identity. This leads to them pursing their desires.  Overall, I gained some knowledge through the moderator and Mr. Li.

In my life, I want to achieve many goals. As many of you know, I volunteered at the salvation army. It had the biggest impact on my life. I worked with second graders all day long from 8:30  in the morning to around 5:30 in the evening. I devoted so much time in this activity because I want the kids to learn something in some aspect. I dealt with an ADD kid over this summer, along with six other kids. The ADD kid troubled me because he needed a lot of attention that I couldn’t give him. He constantly would not listen to the lesson and ends up playing around. He would play around with his water bottle and bang it against the table. Sometimes when he is copying notes, he would just suddenly stop and stick his eraser in his mouth. It was hard to deal with him. I wanted to so a one on one teaching session  with him but it was not possible because he wasn’t the only student. I tried my best to teach him the lesson. Although I  hated teaching him because of his disorder, I also felt bad for him. I wanted him to do well and learn something. I ended copying the lesson for him so that he can concentrate on the actual classwork. That didn’t work out so well. He still needed someone to watch him and make hum work. If nobody was next to him, he would just do nothing, in e end, I had a volunteer try his best to go over the lesson with gym as I taught the class. I taught both math and English so that was two hours back to back teaching. As the program came to an end, I noticed that he had learned something in my class and I felt relieved.

Now that I am in college, there are certainly many different changes and important things to think about for my own future and for my own good. The college life is much different from high school. We all have to pace ourselves without anyone else helping us during the process. We must meet the deadlines and no one is there to remind us. Also, there is much more readings to do for homework where we will not be able to cover most of it in class. As for my future, I now have to think about what I really want to pursue in life in order to get the degree for it. I am unsure of what career I really want to do. At first I wanted to become an accountant because it’s a job that I can easily pursue in four years and I don’t mind doing math. However, I have been told many times it is a boring job and my uncle told me that this job is too simple that almost anyone can go learn the skills necessary to do it and become an accountant. So now I am unsure of what I really want to do after college.

So this is a picture that I found and I believe resembles me. hahas

Early morning I wake up warmly wrapped on my bed;
Leaving my dreams of bright days into a dark and cold room.
The sky is so gloomy with a new day ahead–
It’s so unwelcoming I don’t want to move.
To get up and enter the busy city streets
Filled with millions of faces I may never meet.
A mesh of faces of different colors, different size,
People who blend in, people who stand out.
But in the end they all have the same thing in mind.
Without a doubt it’s a single track mind:
“I need to get here. I need to get there”
And you better watch out if you dare to interfere.
Their eyes show concern for their troubles for their problems.
So wrapped up in their world they forget about the world.
So caught up in me, myself and I,
There’s no room to stop or to say hi.

But it’s okay, it’s alright
I’ll just do my thing and live my life.
This peace I got is contagious;
People get dumbfounded by patience,
Kindness makes them stop and think,
And their hearts change when encountered with innocence.
So, I’ll live as me and I’ll do my thing
I won’t let the crowd and mesh get to me
Avoiding the mindset of just me in my life
So my conscience is free of the thought:
“You’re just like the others.”