Author Archives: elain.ng

So I finished my community service at Brooklyn Chinese-American Association. I was assigned to an elementary school and tutored the kids for the after-school program. It wasn’t fun indeed because kids were annoying. I was taking care of a 4th grade classs and the kids really annoyed me. Perhaps I don’t look old enough and they were not scared. I realized that it’s pretty hard to be a teacher. A teacher has to be really careful of what they say and what they do to students, as kids usually tend to seek for superior  authority – their parents- when they think they are threatened. Then they will believe the teacher is going to be in a trouble. Through this community service, except for having more hostility towards kids, I pretty much learnt how they think and how I should communicate with them. For example when kids asked me about homework, I was used to explain in my own sense and knowledge, which is bad, because the kids could never understand. So I learnt how to put myself into their shoes and tried to explain based on their understandings and perhaps taught them in a funnier way. Some of the kid were very smart and they understood quickly, while some just didn’t. In this case I sometimes asked the smarter kids to try to explain the questions to them. I believe this will train those kids in some ways since they did not just know how to solve math questions but they also knew how to use their knowledge to help the others and be more considerate.  In general I think this community service was not bad, at least I figured out how to get along with kids.

I love people. Sure there are some bad ones but if you can filter out the toxic ones (and I’m getting SO much better at that), you can find yourself amazed and gratified by the ones you do have around you. Perhaps I’m just being all Pollyanna because I’m happy to be sober, but I like seeing people I like change and grow and flourish and do kind things and have kind things done for them. And I like to, where I can, help any of my friends who aren’t flourishing, because people have reached out and helped me so much, and seeing people happy and reaching their goals is so fulfilling. My psychologist friend says life is about connection, and it is. I hate it so much when people around you tell you that you need to know more peopel and build your social network because you are supposed to, especially when you want to go for a business major. I know that it is quite true but that sounds so on purpose. I like knowing people not because I want to be popular or try to gain some benefits from every one of them. I like knowing people and making friends because I will be able to hear new stories, see different perspectives, and learn at least something from each one of them. A senior student in the school told me that we can only make good friends when we are in freshman year, because as people proceed they start getting busy on internships and works and big companies, chasing their dreams and having no time to care too much about friends and relationship. I don’t know if its true but I guess we ought to treasure the ones that we just have and the ones that we have had for a long time. No one wants to be alone.

So who do I think I am..?

I think I am just a normal person with normal life and normal goals.. actually a normal person who loves procrastinating as you can see.  I am an ordinary chinese girl who was born in america but raised in Hong Kong.  I don’t really know why im in america now, because mom and dad said i have a usa passport so i gotta stay in usa.. does that make sense at all? But it wasn’t my parents whom made the decision for me.. I chose to come at the end because I wanted to find an answer, or seek for something that I was struggling to tell myself, and I dont know what that is.. anyway.  I think the biggest challenges and concerns about my freshman year in baruch is that, I am trying to persuade myself to enjoy going to school and having a nice  college life, instead of feeling compelled to do it.  Right now i believe i am not enjoying it at all but i guess i will try. I am just those kind of people that simply showing apathy towards anything  about school, clubs, activities and any kind of school-spirit-related stuff.  I know this is a problem.  Another concern would be,  it’s not even only about baruch but the whole environment.. how can I have more topics with people? I am not yet too assimilated to the american culture and there are lots of things that I don’t know. So i don’t talk because I have no common interest or topics with people who were grown up in here. But I will try.. it doesnt mean I will forget about my own culture and values but I will try to get a little bit more americanized.  My last concern would be deciding my major base on what my heart truly thinks instead of just going with the flow. One of my friend told me that people choose to study business because they dont know what they can choose or what they want.  I think it is quite true. Originally I wanted to be an artist because I like drawing, painting and designing. But people said in reality, you have to be rich to be an artist because those paints and arts stuff are going to cost a lot. And its hard to survive in that industry. So I stopped learning arts since then.. almost for 5 years.  I think I will just go step by step and see how things go, there are so many uncertainties in our lives.. good luck to everyone.