As many of you probably know, I really hate racism. Most people would agree that racism is bad, yet most people still say racist and prejudiced comments all the time. In particular, it seems to be socially acceptable to "not like Asians," like it's a food preference or something. No Asians on my burger, please, I don't care for them. Why do people think this is okay? It would be horrifying for someone to say the same thing about any other group.
"I'm not racist, I just can't stand Asians."
"I'm not prejudiced, I just can't stand gay people."
"I'm not racist, I just can't stand black people."
"I'm not racist, I just can't stand white people." (OK, I've actually been known to say this one, haha)
But tell me honestly that you've never heard anyone say the first line. Did you think it was a big deal when they said it, or did you think, "Oh yeah, that's understandable?"
Anyway, the other night, I was out bowling with some friends. One of the guys remarked about a group of Asian college-aged people coming in, saying, "Ugh, I hope they don't put the ****ing Asians in the lane next to us."
Dude needs a punch in the face! What the hell! And you know what, they were put in the lane next to us, and there was zero problem what-so-ever. They were way better at bowling than most of us and looked like they were having a great time.
This has nothing to do with my major being Chinese or anything like that. The only reason I'm studying Chinese is because I want to work as a linguist, and it is far and away the most in-demand language. I would be equally sensitive toward any group targeted like this. Anyway, I was just in kind of a bad mood after that. It really blows me away, the stuff people say without thinking.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
Back in Pullman
Naturally I am sad that my adventure in Oregon did not culminate into something more functional. On the other hand, the instant I returned to Pullman, everything seems to be going my way. I have only been back for one weekend and I've already run into tons of people I know, all of whom have been delighted to see me again. The weather has been fantastic, which I have been out enjoying with the friends, amidst getting settled into my new house. And I am working a 40-hr week at the pool, along with a nice raise upon returning! Hopefully hearing back about the Head Guard position this week as well, which would be lovely.
The new house is really big and has a beautiful yard, complete with a waterfall. Jake (one of my roommates) and I are trying to get in "lived in" as much as we can at this point. It is hard to determine where best to put our things, as the house is so incredibly spacious. One thing I dislike is that it is all hard vinyl wood flooring (as in, everything, even the bedrooms), so it makes sound carry a lot. This is bad for me, because I tend to go to bed earlier and get up early for work, so when I can hear absolutely everything in the house while lying in bed at 10 o'clock at night, this can be problematic. My solution is to save up money for lots of very large rugs.
The new house is really big and has a beautiful yard, complete with a waterfall. Jake (one of my roommates) and I are trying to get in "lived in" as much as we can at this point. It is hard to determine where best to put our things, as the house is so incredibly spacious. One thing I dislike is that it is all hard vinyl wood flooring (as in, everything, even the bedrooms), so it makes sound carry a lot. This is bad for me, because I tend to go to bed earlier and get up early for work, so when I can hear absolutely everything in the house while lying in bed at 10 o'clock at night, this can be problematic. My solution is to save up money for lots of very large rugs.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Holiday at the Sea
Greg and I have a long checklist of fun things we'd planned to do together this summer. Much of it was accomplished, such as visiting the Wildlife Safari, hiking Spencer's Butte, going boating with our friend, running a lot, and so forth. One of the other things was taking trips to the Oregon Coast. This being my final weekend in Eugene, Greg took advantage of this opportunity to kindly book us a beachfront hotel room in Lincoln City for Saturday.
We just got home this afternoon, smiles on our faces and salt on our skin. It was very lovely and relaxing to get away. While it didn't seem to stir up the romance as we'd expected, I think we both enjoyed the time together, exploring the beach and stomping through the waves.
More often than not, having lived up here for quite a few years now, I find myself vastly preferring this sort of simple beach style with beautiful mountains and rugged coastlines to the popular, cliché Californian beaches of my childhood. Beautiful as they are in California (don't get me wrong), it was so simple for us to come to this amazing, clean, relatively empty beach and get an ocean front room here in Oregon. It's the secret of the Northwest. I like to think of it like the road less traveled by, which will always be the road I choose.
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| Our gorgeous hotel room, complete with a fireplace! |
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| Greg out on the balcony off our room, such a magnificent view |
We just got home this afternoon, smiles on our faces and salt on our skin. It was very lovely and relaxing to get away. While it didn't seem to stir up the romance as we'd expected, I think we both enjoyed the time together, exploring the beach and stomping through the waves.
More often than not, having lived up here for quite a few years now, I find myself vastly preferring this sort of simple beach style with beautiful mountains and rugged coastlines to the popular, cliché Californian beaches of my childhood. Beautiful as they are in California (don't get me wrong), it was so simple for us to come to this amazing, clean, relatively empty beach and get an ocean front room here in Oregon. It's the secret of the Northwest. I like to think of it like the road less traveled by, which will always be the road I choose.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
New news
As you may have noticed, I had to change the title of my blog. Things have not been working out all that well here in Oregon. I love Eugene, I love Greg, and I love Oregon, so that is not the problem. As you know, I wasn't able to get into the classes I needed for the fall and was going to have to postpone my Chinese study until (hopefully, if there would be spaces available!) January, all of which was setting me a great deal back in earning my degree anyway. In addition, I have 3 jobs here, none of which I particularly enjoy, and still do not even have close to 40 hours/week. Barely even 20.
All of this stress has been affecting my personal life in a very negative way. I think Greg & I realized deep down, not long ago that this is simply not the best thing for me.
Sooo here I am coordinating a move back up to Pullman, Washington. I got my old job back there, lifeguarding and fitness instructing, where I can definitely get a lot of hours and actually make some money this summer. Also applied for a manager position at the pool, so hopefully moving up in the world. In Pullman, I can also go to school full-time and hopefully just go to China after next year, then be done! Greg and I are looking at it as a way to start our adult life together faster, even though we'll have to spend a lot of time apart. I really figure we'll both be so busy a lot of the time, that it won't seem so awful. In the fall, he'll be traveling all the time for audits anyway, and he still needs to take the last two sections of the CPA exam, then in the spring it's tax season again already. Even if I were still in Eugene, we'd hardly see each other.
As a stroke of fortune would have it, I have found two roommates for my return. One of whom is Ann, my roommate from last year, so that is very exciting. I may have found a townhouse in Pullman that I really like, and the price seems right. The other potential roommate, Jake, is there checking it out this afternoon. Hopefully it's a winner!
Another bit of good news is that I was able to get registered for the classes I needed, despite my extreme tardiness. My Chinese professor from last year said that because I did such an excellent job in his class, I should try to just test into Chinese 203 for the fall semester. I am so honored that he would suggest that, and I'm really looking forward to the challenge. Lots of studying for the summer, which will keep me occupied.
Wish me luck.
All of this stress has been affecting my personal life in a very negative way. I think Greg & I realized deep down, not long ago that this is simply not the best thing for me.
Sooo here I am coordinating a move back up to Pullman, Washington. I got my old job back there, lifeguarding and fitness instructing, where I can definitely get a lot of hours and actually make some money this summer. Also applied for a manager position at the pool, so hopefully moving up in the world. In Pullman, I can also go to school full-time and hopefully just go to China after next year, then be done! Greg and I are looking at it as a way to start our adult life together faster, even though we'll have to spend a lot of time apart. I really figure we'll both be so busy a lot of the time, that it won't seem so awful. In the fall, he'll be traveling all the time for audits anyway, and he still needs to take the last two sections of the CPA exam, then in the spring it's tax season again already. Even if I were still in Eugene, we'd hardly see each other.
As a stroke of fortune would have it, I have found two roommates for my return. One of whom is Ann, my roommate from last year, so that is very exciting. I may have found a townhouse in Pullman that I really like, and the price seems right. The other potential roommate, Jake, is there checking it out this afternoon. Hopefully it's a winner!
Another bit of good news is that I was able to get registered for the classes I needed, despite my extreme tardiness. My Chinese professor from last year said that because I did such an excellent job in his class, I should try to just test into Chinese 203 for the fall semester. I am so honored that he would suggest that, and I'm really looking forward to the challenge. Lots of studying for the summer, which will keep me occupied.
Wish me luck.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Sad is bad
This has been such a nasty couple of days, work-wise. The worst has been this morning, when my water aerobics students actually stopped me in the middle of my class and said, "Ky, it's good to have new exercises, but we've been here for 9 years and we want the stuff we have been doing for the past 9 years, not this."
I will admit I felt extremely disheartened and indignant. I'm sure that my students back in Pullman wish they could still have me teaching, but they can't and that's the way it is. I said, "Well, I can't watch videos of your old instructor to know what you used to do."
Of course they brought up His Holiness Kraig, the inventor of Hydrofit, who works as an instructor there. They all love him, but he teaches at 6:15 on Tuesday & Thursday mornings, and none of them want to get up that early. So pretty much they want me to get up and go to Kraig's classes so that I can repeat his stuff to them at a more convenient time. I replied, "My problem with this is then I would just be copying Kraig's workouts and not using my experience and understanding of water exercise to develop routines for you. I don't want to just copy exactly what someone else does."
They said, "We understand that, but that's what we want."
I said, "Fine, I can copy. That's fine."
I am not sure when the last time was that I felt so insulted, and then I had to go on teaching them, knowing that they hate my workouts! It's seriously like teaching 5th graders in that they don't listen to me, yet they completely rely on me to tell them what to do. Pulling ****ing teeth.
On the bright side, one of the DAC's personal trainers up and quit out of nowhere on Wednesday, so maybe they will offer me a position with that... Based on my experience with the client-base so far, I think I'd rather shovel cow crap. Actually, I wonder if I can get a job doing that...
Fun things that have been happening: Greg & I did end up going boating with our friend on Lake Detroit. It was a beautiful getaway, very relaxing, and we both came home red lobsters, haha! I call that the White Man's Curse, because it's going to happen after a day in the sun like that no matter what you do.
For the 4th, we spent the morning running the Butte to Butte, which is a popular 10k race here in town. Lots of people - about 4,500 showed up to run or walk, they said. It reminded me of Bloomsday in Spokane, although that usually has around 50,000 participants. We had a really good time with that, and I was really happy with my results. I don't have any of Greg's pictures, but I stole some of the ones photographers had of me from their website.
I will admit I felt extremely disheartened and indignant. I'm sure that my students back in Pullman wish they could still have me teaching, but they can't and that's the way it is. I said, "Well, I can't watch videos of your old instructor to know what you used to do."
Of course they brought up His Holiness Kraig, the inventor of Hydrofit, who works as an instructor there. They all love him, but he teaches at 6:15 on Tuesday & Thursday mornings, and none of them want to get up that early. So pretty much they want me to get up and go to Kraig's classes so that I can repeat his stuff to them at a more convenient time. I replied, "My problem with this is then I would just be copying Kraig's workouts and not using my experience and understanding of water exercise to develop routines for you. I don't want to just copy exactly what someone else does."
They said, "We understand that, but that's what we want."
I said, "Fine, I can copy. That's fine."
I am not sure when the last time was that I felt so insulted, and then I had to go on teaching them, knowing that they hate my workouts! It's seriously like teaching 5th graders in that they don't listen to me, yet they completely rely on me to tell them what to do. Pulling ****ing teeth.
On the bright side, one of the DAC's personal trainers up and quit out of nowhere on Wednesday, so maybe they will offer me a position with that... Based on my experience with the client-base so far, I think I'd rather shovel cow crap. Actually, I wonder if I can get a job doing that...
Fun things that have been happening: Greg & I did end up going boating with our friend on Lake Detroit. It was a beautiful getaway, very relaxing, and we both came home red lobsters, haha! I call that the White Man's Curse, because it's going to happen after a day in the sun like that no matter what you do.
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| Sunny 3rd of July on Detroit Lake, Oregon |
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| The happiest runner |
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| Solid sprint to the finish |
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Summer summer time
Life is saturated in signs of summer these days. In fact, ever since I moved here a month ago, the weather has been really lovely. Only more recently has it begun to get very hot (circa 80˚+ F, 27˚+ C). Usually it has been high 60s to mid 70s, which is extremely comfortable to me. Not complaining about the higher temps though, and they couldn't have come for a better weekend (Independence Day).
In light of my increased running escapades (yesterday Greg & I put in a really solid 9 miles!) I had been in desperate need to update my running shoes. My last pair was 2 years old and had more than a healthy dose of miles on them, as I used to work them really hard on a regular basis. Sad to see them go, but so excited about my new pair I got at Eugene Running Company. They are so beautiful and super comfortable.
In other news, I had an interview today with the Director of Reception at the Downtown Athletic Club, who really liked me, and wants to get me trained and working early than originally thought. I officially have three jobs. Paula mentioned wanting to get me started as a Manager-on-Duty by October, so my former unemployment woes have turned into a mess of overemployment - Haha!
I'm really missing studying Chinese. I've been doing a bit of review and I have a cool flashcard program on my computer, but I really like speaking it and learning new characters. At least that means I'm still very excited about my area of study/intended area of future employment!
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| A delicious summer snack plate I put together this afternoon, complete with homemade sweet tea. |
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| My new pair of running shoes. |
In other news, I had an interview today with the Director of Reception at the Downtown Athletic Club, who really liked me, and wants to get me trained and working early than originally thought. I officially have three jobs. Paula mentioned wanting to get me started as a Manager-on-Duty by October, so my former unemployment woes have turned into a mess of overemployment - Haha!
I'm really missing studying Chinese. I've been doing a bit of review and I have a cool flashcard program on my computer, but I really like speaking it and learning new characters. At least that means I'm still very excited about my area of study/intended area of future employment!
Friday, July 1, 2011
Grow so tall
Sorry I got a little heavy in the last post. It's just good to provide a different perspective, and I feel I can empathize with a lot of different views. Ironically, Greg is among the people who feels gay pride is silly and unnecessary, so go figure. I reckon everyone's out having fun, so why ruin it.
I got to see my parents and Grace yesterday as they stopped through Eugene on their way down to Lake Almanor, California. I always love seeing them, and wish our time together could be more extensive. Hopefully in the near future.
Another interesting and spontaneous turn of events is one of my old high school friends, Rosie, and her new husband, Tanner, are spending the week living in our guest bedroom, as they are temporarily between apartments. I have definitely been in that awkward situation, where one of my leases ended a month before the other began, and I had to live with Greg after only dating for a month and a half or so. Definitely a big growing point for us, haha! Anyway, Rosie & Tanner are a pleasure to have, and it is kind of nice having a few extra faces around the house.
Greg and I have been working out tirelessly (perhaps not the most suitable word choice) these past few weeks, so our bodies are getting into tip-top shape. Today we signed up for a 10k run called the Butte-to-Butte (hehe) which takes place the morning of July 4th.
Not entirely sure what our plans are for the holiday weekend. I would like to spend Sunday boating with our friend, Bryan, and then barbecue with some friends here in town after our run on Monday. There are also some good parades and shows going on, so I have my options open for now. We'll see what happens!
I got to see my parents and Grace yesterday as they stopped through Eugene on their way down to Lake Almanor, California. I always love seeing them, and wish our time together could be more extensive. Hopefully in the near future.
Another interesting and spontaneous turn of events is one of my old high school friends, Rosie, and her new husband, Tanner, are spending the week living in our guest bedroom, as they are temporarily between apartments. I have definitely been in that awkward situation, where one of my leases ended a month before the other began, and I had to live with Greg after only dating for a month and a half or so. Definitely a big growing point for us, haha! Anyway, Rosie & Tanner are a pleasure to have, and it is kind of nice having a few extra faces around the house.
Greg and I have been working out tirelessly (perhaps not the most suitable word choice) these past few weeks, so our bodies are getting into tip-top shape. Today we signed up for a 10k run called the Butte-to-Butte (hehe) which takes place the morning of July 4th.
Not entirely sure what our plans are for the holiday weekend. I would like to spend Sunday boating with our friend, Bryan, and then barbecue with some friends here in town after our run on Monday. There are also some good parades and shows going on, so I have my options open for now. We'll see what happens!
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