Sunday, July 02, 2006

Europe - Time slips by too fast...read one of my business school essays!

So my trip is basically over. I'm on the plane back from Madrid to NYC. Madrid was an incredible place, not unlike Buenos Aires on many levels, but much cleaner and with (if possible) an even more buslting night scene. Or perhaps I simply didn't take advantage of my late mights in BsAs. However, this time I definitely took advantage, eating lunch around 2pm and then Tapas for dinner around 11pm each night and tucking myself into my comfortable bed around 2am. I'm proud of myself for being such a late-nighter when I was by myself. The madrid style of living is such a sharp contrast to Beijing, where if I wasn't home by 6:30pm my host family would have already eaten dinner! No joke, it happened a couple of times.
Anyway, I was also surprised how much I fell in love with Rome, which was probably the most expensive city on my trip after London. I guess what surprised me about Rome was how compact the city center really felt. It seemed like I couldn't go 10 steps without running into something very old, or at least that looked very old! Also I fell in love with the food in Rome. I felt like I couldn't eat anything that wasn't ridiculously awesome! HOWEVER, I did a random sampling of gelato in Rome and honestly I can't say that its difinitely better than in Argentina. I mean, c'mon they're both awesome, but the Buenos Aires helado to me was a little more insanely addictive, although in Rome I was able to have some rice-flavored gelato that was pretty amazing. Also I tried a real old-fashioned zabayonne, which blew my mind. I really need to watch out for daibetes! I take in so much sugar!
As for Prague/Budapest/Croatia, they were incredible and I miss them already. I had a chance to bond with both Kelly Stevens and my cousin Joyce, both of whom are awesome. I got kinda freaked out by traveling with other people after about two weeks, but then as soon as they left I missed them terribly. Hopefully I will see them in July when I'm finally back in Sunny CA.
Anyway, now I am faced with the depression that sets in for anyone who has spend siginificant time traveling and needs to face the reality of being back home, or in my case being back in NYC which isn't really home and is quite honestly a place that I literally turned my life upside-down in order to escape. But hopefully I will be able to have fun and I think my sticker shock post-China will be gone a bit now that I have been in Europe for a little while.
I distinctly remember having a conversation with Samidha in Buenos Aires when I went there in 2003. I had met up with Samidha there, and South America was the last leg of her massive 2-year trek around the globe. She was more depressed than I am about going home, but I remember trying to convince her that ordinary life is in itself a bit of an adventure. Making a new life for oneself and finding the things in every day that make us happy can be just as exciting as trekking around the world. At the time she seemed unconvinced, just as I am unconvinced now as I face the prospect of mundane domestic existence. At the same time I don't think I have shaken the bug that makes me want to live abroad again, or maybe even move away.
Anyway, I have decided to spoil you and let you read one of my business school essays. This one is to a certain Southern CA school that I am in love with, accepted me, and even offered me money to go there, but like a fool I declined and instead will be going to nerd school where I can learn better ways to come up for prices of things like securities. Anyway, I thought of this essay because one of my best friends Billy is getting married this weekend so I will see 4 of my best friends from high school together for the first time in about five years. Give it a read if you life...actually I might have already posted it, in which case give me a break...i can't keep track of everything!!
Please provide us with a summary of your personal and family background. Include information about your parents and siblings, where you grew up, and perhaps a highlight or special memory of your youth. (Limit to 2 pages.)
Our heroes stepped forth in the dark night and entered the field covered in fog so thick that five feet in any direction was completely invisible. Slowly, they noticed small shapes in the fog, and as they walked deeper into the field the true nature of these shapes became apparent: hundreds of fluffy, lop-eared bunnies crouched, munching on the green grass. Despite their lack of activity, the five boys all knew what would come next: Bunny stampede.
"NOW!!!!" The boys took-off running toward the herd at fully speed, instantly alerting the hundreds of bunnies of their presence. The stampede had begun.
This was a sight few would ever glimpse: the mad frenzy of hundreds of bunnies running in all directions through thick fog. Eventually the boys realized that they couldn’t actually catch these animals that were literally "quick like rabbits", so they went back to their cars and drove home. None of them would forget what they had seen that day and the lesson they had learned: if you see a story on the local news about five hundred escaped petting zoo bunnies living in a field next to the local elementary school, it presents an opportunity for at least one night’s adventure. I was one of those five boys, and that was a typical Friday night for my four closest high school friends and me in Huntington Beach, California.
My background was typical for the Orange County suburbs of the 1980s and 90s. My father was, like most Orange County dads at the time, an aerospace engineer. He had worked his way out of East L.A. poverty after moving back to the U.S. following World War II as a child. As a U.S. citizen during the war, he was distrusted by the local Japanese, and as an “F.O.B.” (“Fresh Off the Boat”) in post-War California, he was mocked by his English-speaking classmates. He put himself through UCLA for college and graduate school, and spent 35 years working for McDonnell Douglas before retiring in the late 1990s. My mother was the child of white Midwesterners of Dutch, Norwegian, and Irish descent who moved to California before the Great D epression. Her childhood was spent in the then ethnically diverse city of Compton. She attended Cal State Long Beach during the late 1960s as a full-fledged anti-war “hippy”, and worked as a computer programmer, florist, and high school math teacher before becoming a full-time housewife and raising my older sister and me. It wasn’t until I was in high school that she started teaching again full-time. Despite their 12-year age difference, interracial marriage, and contrasting religious backgrounds, my parents’ experience was typically “Californian”, and so was that of their two children.
My sister and I grew up sheltered behind the “Orange Curtain” that separates pedestrian Orange County from its interesting, cosmopolitan neighbor to the north. My sister, the only girl to play on our high school’s varsity water polo team, was also a member of the Huntington Beach Lady Republicans, her class salutatorian, and the first person from my high school to attend Caltech. Between the two children, she was the “good one” and appeased my parents’ ambition to have one child become an engineer. It was only after she left for college that she cut and dyed her hair (many times and many colors) and rejected her religious and conservative past. Years later she would quit her job with Applied Materials to move to Boston and work with homeless animals, finally achieving the personal satisfaction that had eluded her for years.
She may have been the “good one” growing up, but I was hardly a “bad kid”. Despite being lazy and unmotivated during elementary and middle school, I become obsessed with classical music and public affairs in high school. My parents’ greatest fear was that I would decide against professional life and university education and instead opt to become a classical musician. In reality, I wanted to be a lawyer. My friends and I didn’t drink, smoke, or do drugs, not because we were against them, but because the thought of trying simply never occurred to us. All of us were in “Band” and “Model UN” together, contributing to our already high collective nerd-factor, and I went to a summer band camp (yes, band camp) with one of them. We never noticed that we were five nerds in a city of surfers until after we all left home for college.
My friends, however, provided the one deviation from the typical sheltered existence of my youth. The field of bunnies was just one example of our creativity finding adventure in suburban life. Often, we would dress in business suits and “crash” events at the many hotels surrounding Disneyland. We crashed eight high school proms each, a casino night raising money for victims of head injuries, a convention for “co-dependents anonymous”, a national cheerleading competition, a giant 15th birthday for someone named Joyce Gore, and several sorority formals. Those adventures were some of the best experiences from my youth, and bonded the five of us for life.
My upbringing shaped me in countless ways. My parents’ combination of immigrant, eastern, western, Christian, Buddhist, defense contractor, and flower-child brought a variety of experience to our family that made me value diversity in every aspect of my life. My sister’s ambition and self-transformation challenged and inspired me to push myself, but not to take my identity for granted. Finally, my friends, their creativity, and their drive for new experiences inspire me to explore the world around me but also remind me that adventure exists in everyday life. Mine was a typically suburban, sheltered, and nerdy background, but it contributed in countless ways to who I am today, and I love it.

posted by Dan, Lover of Dim Sum @ 8:57 AM

2 Comments:

At 12:14 AM, Blogger Random Thinker said...

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