Greek Life

I went to University at Binghamton this past weekend to watch their China Night event. I performed in the Buffalo China Night recently and me and my friends decided to go see the Binghamton China Night because we heard the past few years have been impressive. We got approximately 115 people in the student union theater and Binghamton got approximately 300 people to show up for their China Night. Buffalo's China Night was no comparison to Binghamton's. Their performance contained more and impressive acts. Our China Night incorporated a skit, while their China Night were acts of singing and dancing. Granted, Binghamton prepared for their performance about two months in advance while we prepared only two weeks in advance because we did an extra performance called international fiesta.
Even though Binghamton's China Night was better in that it had more acts and a bigger audience everybody in the audience and show was affiliated to a fraternity or sorority. My friends and I were the only ones without letters on our jackets and shirts. The crowd in audience was separated based on what sorority or fraternity they belonged to. It was very "clicky" in that people stayed secluded only to their group. I felt like I was in High School again. Isn't greek life intended to promote the broadening of one's horizons by meeting new people. In my opinion Greek life only isolates one to a particular group of friends. By joining a fraternity or sorority, it lessens the chance for one to get to know other people outside of their fraternity/sorority. Therefore,their China Night was more of a popularity showcase through performances than an actual representation of Chinese culture.

Pro-Choice

In my opinion, women should be given the option to bear children or to not bear children. The government shouldn’t be allowed to interfere with the decisions a woman makes. Don’t we pride this country on democracy, freedom and people’s rights? Giving the government the power to declare abortion is illegal would be contradicting our country’s doctrine. Forcing a woman to conceive is making a big decision for her life because a child affects every part of a person’s life. Besides labor, a child imposes financial, time, social and many other losses. If the government declared abortion is illegal, it would be overstepping its boundaries into the rights of the people. The person pregnant with the child should be the only person that has the final decision in whether or not it’s going to be brought out into this world. Having a pro-choice stance doesn’t necessarily mean that a person would rather have abortion than to conceive a child. Honestly, I’m not sure if I would consider abortion if I was pregnant at 18 years old. Therefore pro-choice and pro-abortion is not interchangeable. A person who believes in pro-choice believes that woman should be given the choice to decide whether they want a baby, while a person of pro-abortion supports abortion. Another reason why abortion should be kept legal is so it’s’ government funding can continue and people would be able to have safe abortions. Even if abortions were made illegal, many people would still do it, either by themselves or by somebody else. Whether it is a teenage girl who doesn’t want her parents to find out, or a married woman who wants to destroy all evidence that she’s been cheating, or for the pure fact that a woman isn’t financially stable, people will find many reasons to illegally abort their baby. If the government were to make it illegal, woman would resort to dangerous measures to abort their baby because there wouldn’t be any abortion centers due to lack of government funding. Therefore two salient reasons why abortion should be kept legal is to continue the democracy our country fosters as well as prevent the tragedies of woman dying from unsafe abortions.

China Night 2010

This past Sunday, I had a show called China Night at the student union theatre. Unfortunately the Chinese Student Association only had two weeks after our first performance called International Fiesta to prepare for China Night. During the two weeks we didn’t sleep or care about anything else except for the show. By the show, we needed to perfect several dance routines, a lengthy skit, curtains, spotlight and pamphlets. We had our work cut out for us. I could feel the tension among executive board for the Chinese student association during those two weeks. I came home from practice at around 1am every night because we were doing everything last minute. Our show basically mocked Asian stereotypes and music videos. Therefore it was targeted towards the Asian community at Buffalo University. My dance routine was “nerds gone wild.” A few girls, including me, pretended to be nerds the first few minutes of the routine to the song “Tik Tok” by Kesha and in the last few minutes we broke out into wild girls to the song “Good Girls Gone Bad” by Cobra Starship and Leighton Meester. The male members in the Chinese Student Association performed a comical routine to “Chinese Ladies,” which is a spin off from “Single Ladies” by Beyonce. When Sunday night came, we were still making last minute adjustments and searching for videos five minutes before we let people come in. We were so unprepared, that performers were improvising on stage because they forgot a step in the routine or lines from the skit. Even though we were really unprepared, nervous and stresses out, we didn’t let that interfere with putting on a great show. Fortunately the show turned out great! The audience seemed like they were enjoying the show through their laughter. All the mistakes we made on stage were noticeable and we all played it off well through improvisation. After the show we were all suppose to go out and celebrate, however we were all so deprived of food and sleep that we just ordered food and went back to go sleep. Overall the experience was great even though I was stressed out for two week. The adrenaline rush and excitement on stage made it so worth it. I would perform China Night next semester as well.

Chris Brown

Chris Brown came out with a new album named Graffiti. However, unlike his past albums, this album wasn’t aired on the radio because he was blacklisted. He was blacklisted because he physically abused his girlfriend, Rihanna. Even though I don’t know the details or reasons, there isn’t any justification to what Chris Brown did. Nobody, male or female, deserves to be a victim of physical abuse. After the incident aired the news the public had a lot of mixed feelings. People went as extreme to say his music should be banned to Rihanna deserved it. Personally, I have very mixed feelings on whether I should listen to his music. If I were to listen to his music , I would be supporting him. However, I do listen to his music on youtube and his new album is in my opinion his best album yet. I know a lot of his lost fans would enjoy his new album. Unfortunately Chris Brown’s amazing talent is completely disregarded due to his criminal act. I remember Chris Brown was on top of the world before the incident. Now he’s looked down upon and made fun of ultimately creating a loss in business, money, fans and most importantly respect. I feel guilty listening to his music, however I’ve never stopped because he’s such an amazing singer and performer. I learned a term in psychology called “cognitive dissonance.” Cognitive dissonance is mental discomfort due to a conflict between one’s actions and values/morals. I experience cognitive dissonance every time I put on a Chris Brown song. My morals tell me not to support a man who abuses woman, but I listen to his lyrics anyway. What Chris Brown did to Rihanna is unforgivable and unforgettable. However we should not forget is amazing talent and contributions to the music industry.

New York City

I wasn’t able to spend the majority of my spring break in New York City like I wanted. However the days that I did spend there were amazing. Despite the fact that I spend more than I intend I still think the city is worth it. The variety of foods, activities and people give the city such a worldly environment. I met up with my friends in the city and spent the whole day. We first went to the Central Park zoo and the newly opened Children’s Tisch petting zoo. The sea lion show during our zoo visit was mediocre and the llamas, pigs, sheeps and cows looked depressed at the petting zoo. I saw children running around the zoo with expressions of awe and excitement. Watching their bodies plastered against the glass windows. I guess the excitement fades as you get older because I remember my zoo experience being the exact same when I was ten years old. After the zoo we got hungry and looked for the closest street vendor. Of all the times I’m at the city, that was the first time I ate food from a street vendor. I felt like a true New Yorker stuffing my juicy, jumbo hot dog down my throat. I knew how disgusting the hot dog was and how unsanitary street vendors are, but I didn’t care. Then we decided to go ice skating at Bryant Park, but we realized that the rink was closed when we got there so we shopped and browsed in Soho. As we were walking the streets of Little Italy, waiters were desperately trying to get us into their restaurants. At one point, two waiters from different restaurants were talking to us at the same time about their food and cheap prices. We finally picked a restaurant that offered us free soda as bribery and I ordered linguine with white wine sauce and clams. It was delicious and it just hit the spot after a day of walking in the city. Instead of eating desert at the restaurant we traveled to union square to dine at Max Brenner which is a fancy chocolate and desert restaurant. Max Brenner serves syringes of pure melted chocolate, heavy duty milkshakes, chocolate crepes, cakes and fondues. I ordered a slice of carrot cake with a layer of white chocolate frosting and it came with a small side dish of mangoes and oranges with aluminum shaker filled with melted chocolate. My friend ordered a banana chocolate that looked just a scrumptious. Ending with Max Brenner’s was perfect to my long day in the city.

International Fiesta

International Fiesta is a showcase, at the Center for the Arts, of various ethnic student associations performing traditional dances of the specific culture they’re representing. I performed to a Mulan themed soundtrack with the Chinese Student Association. We have been preparing for this performance for a month from 9pm to 1am every night and I couldn’t wait for performance day to show all my friends what I had been doing for the past month. I played a Hun, which refers to the Mongolians in Mulan who wanted to conquer China. We had to arrive hours beforehand so we would have ample time to do hair, makeup and costume. My friend, Stephanie, and I got so excited for our show as we were teasing our hair and smearing on black makeup in the bathroom. Finally all our hard work was going to be all worth it. We knew there were 3,000 people watching us perform, but we were more pumped than nervous. I said to myself backstage there was no way I was able to mess up. I’ve done my routine too many times to mess up a two minute routine.
I was backstage along with the other Hun performers waiting for the first scene in our routine to end. Right before I was about to go on stage a wooden stick which was one of our props came flying at my forehead. My adrenaline was pumping when it happened, so the throbbing pain was the last thing I was thinking about. I decided it wasn’t a big deal so I ran on stage and started doing my routine. As I was swiping my sword I felt liquid pouring down my face. My blood got all over my costume, my partner, and the stage. Nobody realized I was injured because I looked okay when I did the routine. After doing my two minute routine me and my friend ran off stage and rushed to the bathroom. Soon all of the Chinese Student Association surrounded me in the bathroom getting me towels, water and M&Ms. I didn’t realize how bad my injury was until the paramedics came and told me I needed to go to the hospital and get stitches. I went to the hospital and the nurse physician sewed me up and I got a total of five stitches. After the hospital I went to Denny’s where everybody was and everybody clapped for me. Even though I didn’t have fun at the actual performance I did enjoy all the late night practices and the new people I met. I remember people from other student associations came and asked if I was okay and if there was anything they could do. Even though International Fiesta was a competition it brought people together at the end because we all shared the same stage. I would definitely do it again next year.

Shutter Island

The movie Shutter Island is about a U.S. Marshall named Teddy Daniels who investigates a mental institution for a missing patient. As he investigates the island and patients he believes that the mental institution planned for his visit and is trying to admit him into the institution by using his post-war trauma. The institution tries to accumulate as many patients as possible to surgically experiment with them in a lighthouse on the island. After he uncovers the truth he attacks the lighthouse to look for his partner and eventually leave the island. At the lighthouse he realizes that his partner has been his psychiatrist since his 2 – year stay at the mental institution. Teddy Daniels is one of the institution’s most violent and delusional patients. The majority of the movie is Daniels hallucinations. We see a flashback of Daniels coming home from work and realizing that his wife drowned his three children. In the flashback he shoots his wife after realizing that she is mentally ill herself. Daniels created this alternate reality in his mind on Shutter Island because he wanted to deny that the woman he loved killed his children.
Shutter Island had a similar twist to Fight Club because the main character ended up being mentally ill. However the twist in Shutter Island was clearly foreshadowed throughout the movie, unlike that of Fight Club. The twist in Fight Club was more shocking because it was so unexpected. The background music in Shutter Island helped create a lot of suspense for the audience. The ending for the movie could’ve been interpreted various ways. After Daniels came to terms with reality, the next day he spoke to his psychiatrist like he was his partner again and the ward decided that a lobotomy was Daniels’ last resort. One interpretation could’ve been that Daniels regressed back to his alternate reality and denial. However I think Daniels intentionally pretended like he regressed back, so his psychiatrist would tell the institution that he hasn’t improved. So he wanted the nurses to take him away because his last line was “Would you rather live a monster or die a good man.” He accepted reality and couldn’t live with it so he decided to die.