Campus Conversations

3 more weeks of classes

April 14, 2011

I can't believe that there are only 3 more weeks left until summer! (Well, 4 if you consider finals week as well.) I still have a vivid image of my first day at Oxy trying to find where Johnson and Fowler were (without realizing that they are opposite of each other!) and having so much trouble unpacking all my clothes (I tend to over pack a lot), yet now it's already almost the end of the school year! These few weeks have been busy for me. Our French commentary about excerpts from the play The Bald Soprano (La Cantatrice Chauve) and our CSP research paper are due really soon. When I read the first exerpt of the play, I thought to myself: "This [the situation] is ridiculous! This can't happen for real!" The more I read, the more I began to realize that Ionesco (the play's author) creates the most ridiculous situations and actions to mock the life of bourgeoisie society and to emphasize the absurdity of everyday life. The play is so interesting, and I really like it! My CSP class is "Restaurant Culture", and just like its name, we learn about food and the restaurant industry. The articles and readings we had taught me so much about how restaurants operate, both front of the house (waiters/waitresses interact with diners and the dining atmosphere) and back of the house (the kitchen life with chefs and cooks), as well as the relations between the staff members. For my research paper, I decided to write about male chefs and female chefs and try to answer the question of why there are not a lot of "successful" or "great" female chefs in the culinary industry. I'm in the progress of restructuring my paper and try to strengthen my argument. Even though I am busy and stressed out by these assignments (they count a lot!), I'm learning a lot as well. One of my clubs, AATP (Asian-American Tutorial Project) just recently begins again. AATP is a tutoring program where tutors from Oxy, UCLA, and USC volunteer to teach and spend time with immigrant children in Chinatown every Saturday morning. The tutors choose which school grade they want to teach (1st grade to 5th grade) and they are paired up with a tutee. I joined this program starting day 1 in the Fall and I absolutely love it! All the children are so cute, and I really enjoy working with them to improve their English and math skills. I'm tutoring Diane Liu for 3rd grade (and trust me, I actually learned something new from the English and math worksheets as well :P). Each pair of tutor and tutee is given a worksheet to work on together in the first hour. Then we do various activities in the second hour, including arts and crafts and card games. Oh, and I just recently got accepted as a new Director/2nd Grade Leader for AATP next year! :) We're having a retreat this weekend, and I'm super excited for that!

Sunset

I love watching the sunset! :) - Hue