Angie Lee – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Mon, 18 May 2020 07:47:57 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://stanforddaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cropped-DailyIcon-CardinalRed.png?w=32 Angie Lee – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 Asian/Pacific Islander health campaign seeks to highlight longtime disparities https://stanforddaily.com/2020/05/18/asian-pacific-islander-health-campaign-seeks-to-highlight-longtime-disparities/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/05/18/asian-pacific-islander-health-campaign-seeks-to-highlight-longtime-disparities/#respond Mon, 18 May 2020 07:47:51 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1167955 In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the campaign has taken an entirely virtual form on Facebook, with infographics, videos, art and live webinars that highlight health inequities affecting the API community.

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Students in the Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association (APAMSA) are collaborating with multicultural Greek organizations Lambda Phi Epsilon and Sigma Psi Zeta, as well as the Center for Asian Health Research and Education (CARE) at Stanford to raise awareness for health issues that disproportionately impact the Asian/Pacific Islander (API) community. The awareness campaign takes place throughout the month of May, which is API Heritage Month.

The campaign was launched four years ago in partnership with Stanford Team HBV, Stanford Women in Medicine, Queer & Asian and other groups on campus. The movement hosts events to increase discourse about API health issues ranging from hepatitis B to mental and sexual health, in addition to raising funds for various organizations addressing these issues. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the campaign has taken an entirely virtual form on Facebook, with infographics, videos, art and live webinars that highlight health inequities affecting the API community.

This year’s campaign also includes raising money for Asian Health Services (AHS), a community health center working with marginalized communities in the Bay Area. Funds raised will pay for masks and personal protective equipment (PPE) for AHS clinics, as well as IT support for their remote providers, according to Sandra Kong ’21, co-lead of the campaign.

Kong said that the COVID-19 crisis makes now an apt time to push the campaign forward.

“We’re really focusing on how this [pandemic] is impacting API health and wellbeing,” Kong said. “Not just in the sense of the disease affecting the individual directly, but also in terms of social impacts of the disease.”

The campaign highlights how the COVID-19 crisis has intensified API mental health issues, including through increased anti-Asian sentiment in the nation as well as the potential difficulties of sheltering at home as a queer Asian individual.

“For API communities, it’s still a little hard to talk about being queer, especially at home,” said Vianno Vo ’21, Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) director of mental health and wellness, in one of the campaign’s live webinars, “Quarantining while Queer and Asian.”

Moreover, Asian patients are less likely to communicate with medical professionals about depression, anxiety and other mental health issues, according to Bryant Lin, internal medicine doctor, population health expert and co-director of CARE at Stanford.

This barrier to seeking professional help for mental health issues in API households, according to Vo, can exist due to some individuals’ belief that “‘This should stay within the family. Why would you go out and talk to a stranger about it?’”

While COVID-19 may be bringing light to many API health issues, “this is something that we’ve been experiencing not just at this time, but it’s been in place for decades,” Kong said.

Lin said that more research is needed in the field of API health, citing a study that discovered only 0.17% of NIH grants has been allocated toward researching the API community over the past 26 years.

“The only area we are perhaps overrepresented in is in [the number of] doctors,” Lin said.

Hepatitis B, normal-weight diabetes, liver cancer, non-smoker lung cancer, gastric cancer and differences in approaches to treating depression are among the many issues that have been disproportionately impacting Asians for a long time, according to Lin.

“There are tons of issues, and this may be a many, many lifetimes project,” he said.

In the meantime, Stanford API Health Awareness Month offers various resources to the greater community with a packed calendar of events, including upcoming COVID-19 community conversations, as well as the “Stuck@Home” Stanford Medicine virtual concert series co-hosted by Lin.

“This is a time when you’re separated from people physically, so the need for connection is all the more important,” Lin said. “Music is really a common cultural touchstone for everyone, Asians and non-Asians. It’s amazing how music can bring us together in a time of strife and division.”

Kong hopes the online campaign will have long-lasting impacts on the API health community.

“Mainly, we just want people to be aware that this is an existing resource, and the great thing is that it can just stay there forever,” she said.

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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‘Absolutely nothing is off the table’: President, provost talk options for fall quarter, budget https://stanforddaily.com/2020/04/29/absolutely-nothing-is-off-the-table-president-provost-talk-options-for-fall-quarter-budget/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/04/29/absolutely-nothing-is-off-the-table-president-provost-talk-options-for-fall-quarter-budget/#respond Thu, 30 Apr 2020 05:45:33 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1167086 A decision on fall quarter will not be made until sometime in June, according to an email from President Marc Tessier-Lavigne on Tuesday.

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President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Provost Persis Drell and School of Medicine Dean Lloyd Minor answered questions about budget cuts, COVID-19 research and the University’s current standings on options for fall quarter in a Zoom conversation on Wednesday. 

Tessier-Lavigne said that the campus activity will resume in a “phased restart,” saying that the communal nature of undergraduate living is an impediment to physical distancing, and that any return of students to campus would need to consider the needs of staff and faculty. A decision will not be made until sometime in June, according to an email from Tessier-Lavigne on Tuesday.

He said factors in decision-making include the availability of means to test, track and treat the disease in the fall, as well as educational considerations.

Drell said there have even been discussions about using tents for instruction in the fall, to “take advantage of the weather” and potentially slow the spread of the disease by being outdoors.

“Absolutely nothing is off the table,” Drell said.

COVID-19 has also created uncertainty surrounding Stanford’s budget. Drell said the University has asked units to begin a worst-case budget scenario planning effort. University units had been told to plan for a 15% reduction in endowment payout and a 10% reduction in allocations from general funds, Drell said at a recent Faculty Senate meeting.

Drell said that Stanford is committed to “continued access for students, including through robust financial aid,” even as the institution stewards its resources for the long term.

When asked if it was possible to address the deficit by decreasing the endowment principal — the core invested portion — Drell responded that “options are open,” but only 20 to 25% of the endowment can be used, without legal restriction, for the University as need may be.

“There is a real caution that needs to be applied in using long-term funds for short-term needs,” she said.

Asked if staff layoffs or furloughs were being planned, Drell said that the situation was still too uncertain to say. 

“We know how frustrating it is for all of you, but trust me, it is frustrating for us as well that we do not have clarity on what the financial challenge will be,” Tessier-Lavigne said.

The conversation also featured updates on Stanford Medicine’s COVID-19 research from Minor, who said that a vaccine may realistically be a year to 18 months in the future.

Stanford researchers have been involved in the two clinical trials that are reporting evidence that the drug remdesivir is effective against the virus, according to Minor.

In addition to these clinical trials, the School of Medicine is collaborating with University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) and the Chan-Zuckerburg Biohub to launch a new study on the prevalence of COVID-19 in the Bay Area. A serological study recently conducted by Stanford affiliates on a similar topic has been criticized for potential statistical errors.

Minor said that Stanford Medicine had been scaling up and performing COVID-19 testing in early March, before many healthcare systems in the area, and had tested 9,000 healthcare workers this past week. But he cautioned that commercial labs would have to carry the burden of performing broad testing.

Stanford Hospital has also gradually begun to resume elective healthcare according to state guidelines, as an immense surge in hospitalized COVID-19 patients is no longer likely, according to Minor.

Telehealth has been a silver lining in the crisis, Minor said, as Stanford Hospital now conducts more than 3,000 virtual patient visits a day.

“I’ve never been prouder to be at Stanford than these past two months,” Minor said. “And the way we’ve come together as a community is exemplary, and it’s going to get us through the challenging days ahead.”

The event closed on a hopeful note with calls to stay connected and Tessier-Lavigne recommending playing charades over Zoom.

“As imperfect as Zoom calls are,” he said, “they are a way of maintaining contact.”

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu and Omkar Shende at oshende ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Crowdsourcing site seeks to predict efficacy of social distancing https://stanforddaily.com/2020/04/23/crowdsourcing-site-seeks-to-predict-efficacy-of-social-distancing/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/04/23/crowdsourcing-site-seeks-to-predict-efficacy-of-social-distancing/#respond Fri, 24 Apr 2020 06:37:18 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1166780 The crowdsourcing site socialdistancing.stanford.edu collects information via an online survey from volunteers who report when social-distancing measures went into place in different U.S. counties.

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Stanford computer scientists are working with the country’s leading epidemiologists and volunteers to collect county-level data about when social-distancing regulations went in place, hoping to inform decisions on when to ease them.

The researchers are aiming to help answer the nation’s looming questions: What will happen if counties relax social-distancing measures? How effective has each measure been?

The crowdsourcing site socialdistancing.stanford.edu collects information via an online survey from volunteers who report when social-distancing measures went into place in different U.S. counties. The team behind the site verifies the data based on public news sources and government communications before sending it to epidemiologists and making it publicly available on the website.

“Crowdsourcing is essentially the process of making an open call for help,” said associate professor of computer science Michael Bernstein, who launched the site on April 6.

Bernstein embarked on the project after receiving a call from Madhav Marathe, a professor of computer science at the University of Virginia (UVA). The project comes at a pivotal moment, as policymakers are debating when to open the country back up.

“The president might lift some of the interventions, and many governors may decide to lift them at least partially,” Marathe said. “People might think [social distancing] is not useful anymore, but that’s not true, because we are going to get [the virus] back.”

While many COVID-19 data-collection efforts have focused on the state level, the crowdsourcing site focuses on county-level information. Marathe, an expert in biocomplexity and computational epidemiology, considers it crucial that epidemiological models understand local contexts better.

“In the end, individuals are living in their counties,” Marathe said. 

Regulations put in place by county governments, which sometimes differ from those implemented at the state or federal level, most directly impact how individuals perceive the severity of the situation in their area. Marathe said these perceptions drive behavior, which “in turn changes the disease habits, which in turn change the perception, and the cycle goes on.”

So far, the site has received more than 4,000 survey responses from 670 U.S. counties, according to Tum Chaturapruek M.S. ’19 Ph.D. ’20, a recent computer science graduate who is working on the project. But that’s not enough. 

“We still need more data from all the counties,” he said. “There are over 3,000 counties.” 

Jacob Ritchie, a first-year computer science Ph.D. student, is on the team leading the project, along with Bernstein, Marathe, Chaturapruek and 13 other researchers. He said one of the biggest problems with the data is that “we’re seeing a lot of these responses coming from the most populous counties and not many from the least.”

Bernstein is calling on Stanford affiliates to join the cause to help gather information about other areas.

“It’s important to us that we not only draw those conclusions based on extremely populous or wealthy counties like Santa Clara,” he said. “Stanford is very proud of having a geographically diverse student body. One of the things that would be most helpful is if students looked at the map [on the site] and saw whether their own areas were covered, and if not, forwarded the link to help us get over that hump for areas that are not major urban centers.”

The team members agree on the importance of collaboration with other institutions and companies who are working on similar projects. Stanford has been working with people at Keystone, the University of Georgia and Research Triangle International to collect, compare, verify and combine the data whenever possible, according to Ritchie.

“Everyone’s on the same team here,” Bernstein said. “Everyone wins if we can collectively curate this information.”

It is too early to draw any definite conclusions from the project’s data, Marathe said. He pointed to the importance of continuing the data-collection effort and complying with local regulations.

“The pandemic is not over. We have a long way to go,” Marathe said. “We need to understand how the interventions affect our epidemic. The only way we can do it is with the data that folks could help us collect. Without that, we would be driving, to some extent, blind.”

Future goals for the project include expanding internationally, as well as adding visual annotations of varying social distancing measures to the site’s map. For now, the researchers emphasize that fighting the pandemic is a team effort.

“Your actions are not only your actions,” Marathe said. “It’s your actions and others who are going to be affected by them.”

4/24/2020 2:51 pm: This article was updated to reflect that the site has now received 4,000 survey responses from 670 unique counties.

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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A case for poetry, by a previous hater https://stanforddaily.com/2020/01/30/a-case-for-poetry-by-a-previous-hater/ https://stanforddaily.com/2020/01/30/a-case-for-poetry-by-a-previous-hater/#respond Fri, 31 Jan 2020 03:18:53 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1163149 I’m just going to come out and say it: I don’t like poetry. At least, I thought I didn’t like poetry for the 21 years of my life up to the beginning of this quarter. I was so sure of it, too. Poetry, in my feeble mind, was either too difficult to understand or tried […]

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I’m just going to come out and say it: I don’t like poetry. At least, I thought I didn’t like poetry for the 21 years of my life up to the beginning of this quarter. I was so sure of it, too. Poetry, in my feeble mind, was either too difficult to understand or tried too hard to be deep — two of my least favorite qualities not only in art or literature, but also in people. 

Poetry, to my ignorant self, was something you either loved or hated, and saying, “I don’t love it, but I appreciate it” seemed like a copout, because the truth was that I didn’t appreciate it. I didn’t give it enough of a chance to appreciate it, nor did I know enough about what to look for in a poem to reach such a state of appreciation. Thus, when I saw that I was required to take two classes related to poetry to graduate with a degree in English with an emphasis in creative writing, I decided to take both at the same time. Let’s get this over with, I thought as I clicked around on Axess and enrolled in one class focused on writing poetry and another on analyzing it. Now, my weeks are filled with poetry, and my feelings toward it have become more complicated. At the very least, I appreciate it, and, dare I say it, I may even like it. 

I went into the quarter expecting to be lectured on the various approaches required to hyper-analyze each stanza, each line, each syllable of a poem to deduce its meaning. On the first day of class, however, my professor laid out the claim: Perhaps we put too much pressure on extracting meaning out of a poem — the very pressure that elicited my previous distaste for poetry. My professor put it like this: If, while going about your life, you encountered a dog with purple spots, your initial reaction would not be to ask, “What does this mean?” Instead, you would admire and inquire about it in terms of the mere manner in which it exists in this world. 

Similarly, if and when, while going about your life, you encounter a poem, you should not undermine the act of simply observing and appreciating the poem for what it is as a curious entity in the world. It is okay if something doesn’t quite make sense — in poetry, aesthetics and meaning are inherently and equally valued.

If my preconceived notions about poetry were reversed in the class that focused on analyzing, they were flipped even further in the class on writing. Rather than encouraging the use of abstractions and metaphors understandable to the poet only (and perhaps not even to them), my creative writing teacher told us that the path to the universal is through the specific. Poetic, right? It’s oddly true. Specific details in writing lend readers to relate more to the text, whether through shared experiences or the enhanced ability to imagine exactly what the writer described. Perhaps instead of “trying too hard to be deep,” as I initially thought, good poetry aims to poke deep into the hearts of readers through specific, relatable and sometimes simple language and imagery.

Taking these two classes requires that I write at least one and read several poems throughout the week. Perhaps my favorite thing about this newfound appreciation for poetry is the manner in which I am forced to view and inquire about the world through the lens of poems.

As my nostrils flare in the cold winter weather, as I miss loved ones that are far away, as I snack on a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, I wonder if I should write my weekly poem on this topic. I consider — are there some things in life that are deemed “worthy” of being the subject of a poem and other things that aren’t? Are there things in my life that are “worthy” of being considered poetry?

As I switch gears and read and analyze some poems for the other class, I realize that, yes, poets all over the world and throughout history seem to have wondered the same things — and, yes, many of the small, beautiful, heartbreaking and heartwarming things in my life have been deemed worthy of poetry. In fact, they are poetry, and are the reason it exists.

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Exploring the culinary scene of San Francisco https://stanforddaily.com/2019/05/16/exploring-the-culinary-scene-of-san-francisco/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/05/16/exploring-the-culinary-scene-of-san-francisco/#respond Thu, 16 May 2019 08:00:28 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1154952 Food is one of the gateways to a society’s culture. As a Korean American, one of the times I feel closest to my heritage is eating beef short rib soup in Downtown L.A. or rice cake soup during New Year’s Day gatherings. On a human level, the act of eating food brings people together and […]

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Food is one of the gateways to a society’s culture. As a Korean American, one of the times I feel closest to my heritage is eating beef short rib soup in Downtown L.A. or rice cake soup during New Year’s Day gatherings. On a human level, the act of eating food brings people together and opens minds to different cultures and traditions. At Stanford, we live just an hour away from one of the most vibrant cosmopolitan centers in the world, San Francisco. Within the city, the Mission District represents the home to a bustling culinary scene with authentic cuisines from around the world. Seeking to explore the culture in our neighborhood San Francisco, we embarked on a day-long adventure to the Mission.

Beretta

Exploring the culinary scene of San Francisco
Sweet potato fries with gorgonzola cheese

After jumping off the BART at 16th Street Mission, we wandered through mural-lined streets until arriving at our first stop: an Italian restaurant called Beretta. Our antipasto, or the first course of a traditional Italian meal, was the sweet potato fries with the gorgonzola and parmesan. The highlight of this dish was the gorgonzola cheese dip. Soft, warm, cheesy, with a hint of sourness, this cheese melted around the tongue. Paired with the crispy sweet potato fries with a hint of saltiness and soft filling, the dish was a celebration of sweet, sour and salty flavors.

Exploring the culinary scene of San Francisco
Margherita burrata

Next, the margherita burrata pizza arrived, in all of its simple aromatic grandeur. Burrata refers to an Italian cow milk cheese that consists of mozzarella and cheese. We marveled at the texture of the cheese; it was liquid-like yet chewy and soft. Biting into the toasted bread, we first encountered the rich tomato sauce with fresh tomato pieces. until the soft cheese came onto the scene with a hint of basil, rounded out by a thin yet firm toasted crust.

Exploring the culinary scene of San Francisco
Crab aracini

The star of the meal was the crab arancini, or stuffed Italian rice balls that are fried. Crisply toasted on the outside, the balls had steaming filling on the inside with a hodgepodge of rice, crab and vegetables. The crispy outer and soft inner textures made for a delectable combination to chew on. The tangy tartar sauce dipping danced in powerful sync with the gently salty flavor of the arancini; the flavors in combination worked to bring each other out even more strongly.

Limon Rotisserie

Exploring the culinary scene of San Francisco
Lomo Saltado

After walking through a desolate, quite frankly slightly eerie street to find this Peruvian restaurant, our taste buds were not disappointed. We decided to order the dish sub-labeled as a “Traditional Peruvian Favorite,” and it was clear why that is the case. The beef tenderloin virtually melted in our mouths as it was exactly that: immensely tender. The stir-fried vegetables and french fries were topped off with some pepper and soy sauce, satisfying our tongues with an Asian zing. The jasmine rice that accompanied the dish was best when lightly drenched with the soy sauce and topped with the delicious vegetables.

Boba Guys

Exploring the culinary scene of San Francisco
Matcha latte and horchata

We next chose to make a stop at the iconic Boba Guys (in fact, the company’s first store was in Mission), where we ordered the horchata tea and matcha latte. Originally a Mexican drink made with rice, milk, vanilla and cinnamon, Boba Guys layered this drink with a shot of their house blend espresso. The horchata tea had a rich, silky cinnamon milk flavor that created a cozy feeling. Soft, chewy and warm, the pearls added a nice contrast to the tea in texture and temperature.

Tartine Bakery

Exploring the culinary scene of San Francisco
Rhubarb and strawberry pie

We picked this dessert as it literally glowed from the display case, its bright pink filling spilling out from the perfectly browned pie crust. The rhubarb added a surprising sourness to the pie, which would have otherwise been perhaps too sweet due to the abundance of syrupy strawberries inside. The crust was arguably the best part — it crumbled between our teeth and provided a strong foundation for the juxtaposed sweet and sour flavors.

Exploring the culinary scene of San Francisco
Rocher: cocoa nib with raspberries

This tasted like candy in baked form. Shaped like the top of a perfectly crafted swirl of ice cream, the hard baked good was sweet yet hard, pieces of candy-like substances crunching then disintegrating inside our mouths. Despite the sugary nature of the dessert overall, it was not impossible to taste some natural, almost vegetable-like flavors mixed into the delectable good. Overall, this dessert confirmed the reason why Tartine Bakery usually has long lines that go out the door.

After returning to Stanford, I couldn’t help but think that we had just sampled a tiny proportion of the diverse foods in the Mission, let alone in San Francisco. This trip has made me want to be more adventurous and continue exploring new foods and cultures. Dish by dish, we hope to do so. Bon appetit!

This gastronomic adventure was supported by a grant from Ng House.


Contact Annie Chang at annette.chang ‘at’ stanford.edu and Angie Lee and angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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A defense of small talk https://stanforddaily.com/2019/04/10/a-defense-of-small-talk/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/04/10/a-defense-of-small-talk/#respond Wed, 10 Apr 2019 18:44:39 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1152271 Everybody hates small talk. There’s no denying it. Google defines “small talk” as, “polite conversation about unimportant or uncontroversial matters, especially as engaged in on social occasions.” Now, the English major in me automatically performed a close-read on this definition. Here’s how I unpacked it: This definition of small talk literally contains the word “unimportant,” […]

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Everybody hates small talk. There’s no denying it. Google defines “small talk” as, “polite conversation about unimportant or uncontroversial matters, especially as engaged in on social occasions.” Now, the English major in me automatically performed a close-read on this definition. Here’s how I unpacked it:

This definition of small talk literally contains the word “unimportant,” implying that no significant outcomes could ever emerge from small talk. Uncontroversial conversation suggests that no one is going to debate or question what you say — besides, what really is there to contest if someone says they’re doing well? “No, you’re not?” Furthermore, the word polite hints at the idea that small talk is only done out of courtesy, not a genuine desire to get to know each other. It designates a certain distance between the two participants in the conversation — a lack of authentic intention. Both parties often spit words back and forth in an effort to not come across as rude, to avoid awkward silences or to match the upbeat social atmosphere surrounding them.

Sure, all of this may be true. However, the question I’d raise is: Is that so bad?

Recently, the case against small talk has been made clear. Countless times, I have heard peers complain about the lack of authenticity in such conversation. People ask, “How are you?” while biking past each other, not even listening to the answer — we’d expect nothing other than a response in the affirmative, anyway. I’ll run into a friend in the dining hall and insist on getting a meal sometime, though we both know that’s not going to happen in the near future, if ever. I can’t even count the number of times I recently said the sentences, “It was good. Went back to Chicago for a bit. It was nice to get a break. How about you?” in response to the question, “How was your break?”

In this manner, I can see how small talk can be seen as a useless, mundane task we are all forced to partake in as human beings. However, I disagree with that notion. In a way, I think it is a beautiful thing — the fact that the question “How are you?” is tossed around so frequently. It’s a simple and profound thing to ask, that question. Though the person who says it may be ungenuine or incurious, the inherent meaning of the question — the language behind it — begs an interest, a caring about the person receiving the question.

How are you? How are you?

The very way in which this phrase is so commonly used — towards strangers, acquaintances and best friends alike — may be the first step in overcoming this ingenuity of which people complain. Perhaps it is not the small talk we should blame, but our own spurious intents and short attention spans.

In all aspects, I think that small talk beats no talk. In fact, thanks to small talk, strangers become acquaintances and acquaintances become friends. It is the inevitable stepping stone towards deeper discussion, the perhaps annoying but necessary way to get to know another human being just a little bit better. Besides, my best friend would not be my best friend if I had not initially asked her how her day was going on that first day of college, when the campus was filled with strangers and there was nothing to do but small talk.

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Life lessons from my browser tab https://stanforddaily.com/2019/02/07/life-lessons-from-my-browser-tab/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/02/07/life-lessons-from-my-browser-tab/#respond Thu, 07 Feb 2019 09:00:15 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1149281 Like many students across the nation, I have an extension called Momentum downloaded onto the Google Chrome browser on my computer. Each day when I open my laptop to go about my work, an aesthetically pleasing photo, such as mountains or an exotic city I will probably never visit, fills my screen. In the middle […]

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Like many students across the nation, I have an extension called Momentum downloaded onto the Google Chrome browser on my computer. Each day when I open my laptop to go about my work, an aesthetically pleasing photo, such as mountains or an exotic city I will probably never visit, fills my screen. In the middle of this photo, the time is displayed in large font, followed by the words, “Good morning, Angie” and “What is your main focus for today?”

I never fill in the blank below; I’m too busy checking off items on the to-do list on the bottom right corner of the same screen. I also frequently check the weather forecast for the day on the top right corner, yet one aspect of Momentum that I tended to ignore until recently is the daily quote written in small white font at the bottom of the screen. This week, however, I decided to pay attention to what my computer was telling me every day, and here’s what I found:

Monday: “If you’re tired, learn to rest, not to quit.”

Reading this quote surprisingly ended up being an aha moment for me, especially on a dreary Monday when I was feeling tired and unmotivated to face another week full of things to do. Resting is one thing Stanford students are extremely bad at. However, my computer reminded me that a frustrating problem set, a dense reading, a frustrating phase in a relationship or a bad day is no reason to give up, but rather to take a break.

Tuesday: “Whether a thought is spoken or not, it is a real thing and has powers of reality.”

I think Momentum was trying a bit too hard to be deep with this one, yet the quote does have some truth in that all thoughts matter, expressed or not.

Wednesday: “The world will ask you who you are, and if you do not know, the world will tell you.”

A bit cringeworthy once again, but, in a way, this quote can be relatable for us college students as we are in the pivotal stage of our life where the world constantly asks who we are, or at least what we want to be. As time goes on I am realizing it is okay for me not to know, but instead of letting the world tell me, I hope each day can be a step towards finding out on my own. Take that as an inspirational quote, Momentum.

Thursday: “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”

This reminded me of another quote that was sent out in a BEAM Career Center newsletter earlier this year. It said something along the lines of: “Don’t think ‘What do I want to do for the rest of my life?’ Think ‘What do I want to try first?’” Both quotes have the similar underlying message not to let fears of failure or uncertainty stop you from trying – at the very least – something you want to do. This was especially comforting to me, an “unpractical” fuzzy studying English.

Friday: “Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.”

To end off the week, this quote encouraged me to recognize the classic message to “stay in your own lane” instead of comparing yourself with others. I am enough and valued, just the way I am, and so are you. It shouldn’t take my computer telling me to know that, but thanks, Momentum.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Wheelin’ in the rain https://stanforddaily.com/2019/01/28/wheelin-in-the-rain/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/01/28/wheelin-in-the-rain/#respond Mon, 28 Jan 2019 14:15:41 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1148764 I’m wheelin’ in the rain, just wheelin’ in the rain. What a horrible feeling, I’m unhappy again. I found myself humming this as I made my way to my human biology section, feeling like I was zooming through one of those mist machines at an amusement park on a hot summer’s day — except I […]

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I’m wheelin’ in the rain, just wheelin’ in the rain. What a horrible feeling, I’m unhappy again.

I found myself humming this as I made my way to my human biology section, feeling like I was zooming through one of those mist machines at an amusement park on a hot summer’s day — except I was on my way to class, and it was a cold winter’s afternoon.

In all seriousness, no one likes the rainy weather — unless you’re from a place where it never rains, and even then, I’d bet you’ll end up sick of it in about a week. I’m from Chicago, where there is ample precipitation of various types, so this is not just me complaining about the rare couple of weeks in California where water falls from the sky. Whenever I check the forecast on my weather app and see a greater than 30 percent chance of rain for the following day, an inevitable groan escapes my lips. However, I have reasons to hate the rain beyond it being a mere inconvenience and making me want to curl up in bed and stay under the covers all day — as if it’s not hard enough motivating myself to go to my 9:30 class.

I dislike the rain because it makes it much harder to go about my day in an electric wheelchair.

Born with a disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy, I require an electric wheelchair to move around — and the key word electric means my wheelchair cannot (or at the very least, should not) get wet. I’ve received many well-intended suggestions to solve this issue. Besides the fact that I would look quite ridiculous, one of those silly umbrella hats isn’t ideal as it would prevent my body from getting wet but not my chair and its controls, which is really the most crucial part. I’ve tried a rain poncho large enough to cover myself and my chair, but an issue with this is that the hood of the poncho often limits my peripheral vision, which is especially problematic since I cannot turn my head from side to side. I’m sure there is some device out there that could mount an umbrella to my chair, yet this still would not allow me to be fully independent as I’d need assistance attaching and removing the umbrella from the device anyway. In short, I’ve discovered no practical solution to this problem thus far.

So, here’s what I do on a rainy day: I wake up, look out the window, groan, have an internal battle with the voice inside my head telling me to ditch all my responsibilities and stay inside, defeat that voice (usually), and then head out, giving myself 10 extra minutes to get places, as I know I will have to zoom at three mph as opposed to my normal six mph, since I have a caregiver walking beside me holding an umbrella. Shout out to my awesome caregivers.

As I trudge through the rain, grumpy about not being able to be at my optimal speed, I can’t help but be thankful for the fact that there are only a few days at Stanford that I have to put up with the rain. I laugh at how every other street experiences a small flood as even the roads on campus aren’t prepared to deal with the rain. I chat with my caregiver, having the chance to get to know them better as we walk together. I relive my childhood by zooming through some puddles on purpose. I admire the differently colored umbrellas that the people around me carry, which contrast with the gray skies. I think that maybe rain isn’t as bad as I make it out to be. Then, a biker accelerates through a puddle, splashing me a little bit, and I realize: nah, it is.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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To drop or not to drop https://stanforddaily.com/2019/01/16/to-drop-or-not-to-drop/ https://stanforddaily.com/2019/01/16/to-drop-or-not-to-drop/#respond Wed, 16 Jan 2019 08:05:26 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1148297 Like many other students on campus, I spent the first week of the quarter shopping a lot — and I don’t mean shopping in the sense of going to the mall and buying clothes. This is a much more stressful kind of shopping — the shopping of classes. I had settled on four five-unit classes, […]

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Like many other students on campus, I spent the first week of the quarter shopping a lot — and I don’t mean shopping in the sense of going to the mall and buying clothes. This is a much more stressful kind of shopping — the shopping of classes.

I had settled on four five-unit classes, all of which I really enjoyed and was excited about. However, with 20 units, involvement in four student groups, as well as the pressure of having to apply for summer internships, I quickly found myself getting overwhelmed rushing from one place to another, barely having time to get my homework done — even though it was only syllabus week — and squeezing in time with friends as opposed to dwelling in it. If there was one class I wasn’t too enthusiastic about, I would’ve dropped it without a moment’s hesitation, but none of these classes seemed worthy enough to drop. So should I do it? Should I push myself to take all these awesome classes on top of pursuing all of these other awesome extracurricular opportunities? I asked myself these questions while deciding whether or not I should drop a class.

Is it required for your major? It’s a simple question, but it helped me to determine whether it was imperative for me to take this class or whether I was taking it out of mere intellectual curiosity. For me, the class I was considering dropping was not required for my major or minor, which led me to the second question.

Could you take it another quarter? Classes are often offered for multiple quarters in the school year. Even if it weren’t, I could take the class the following year, so was it absolutely crucial that I took this class now, when I had a packed schedule already?

Do you have time for yourself? For me, the answer to this question was no during the first week of school. Any time I wasn’t spending in class, at a meeting or having a meal was being spent doing homework or working. No matter how counterproductive it may sound, the time to nap, the time to watch YouTube videos, the time to read for fun — the overall time to rest is as essential to the quality of my life as my education is. It took me a busy, packed week of no rest to realize this.

Is this one class worth the sacrifice of your time? If the class I was considering dropping was one I absolutely didn’t want to miss no matter the stakes, I would be happy to sacrifice free time for it. However, I figure there are too many amazing classes and too little time at Stanford for you to be spending your time taking a class you’re not absolutely stoked about. Unless it’s required for your major, of course.

Do you have that itch of wanting to drop it but feeling like you shouldn’t? As I did the entirety of Week 1, sometimes you know deep down that this is too much, that you’d be pushing yourself too far if you stayed in the class. If you know you want to drop a class but are just putting it off, looking for a sign to tell you that dropping it is the right thing to do, this is your sign: Just drop it.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Ten lessons I learned from the ‘Wicked’ soundtrack https://stanforddaily.com/2018/12/09/ten-lessons-i-learned-from-the-wicked-soundtrack/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/12/09/ten-lessons-i-learned-from-the-wicked-soundtrack/#respond Mon, 10 Dec 2018 03:35:37 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1147550 Weeks out from Halloween, people are listening to Christmas and other holiday music, yet here I am still listening to the Wicked soundtrack on repeat. Ever since NBC hosted “A Very Wicked Halloween,” which featured members of the original Wicked cast as well as current pop stars in celebration of 15 years of Wicked being […]

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Weeks out from Halloween, people are listening to Christmas and other holiday music, yet here I am still listening to the Wicked soundtrack on repeat. Ever since NBC hosted “A Very Wicked Halloween,” which featured members of the original Wicked cast as well as current pop stars in celebration of 15 years of Wicked being on Broadway, my dormant obsession with Wicked has been revived; I have been listening to the soundtrack nonstop. In honor of dead week, which tends to be very wicked to us, here are 10 lessons I learned from one of the best musicals of all time:

1. “No One Mourns the Wicked.”

The musical opens with this heart wrenching number, claiming “goodness knows the wicked’s lives are lonely.” With the world in the polarized, often hateful state that it’s in, it is easy for me to look at the news and the “wicked” people of the world for hurting others or dividing society. However, this song was a timely reminder for me of the sad reality that those who the world considers “wicked” are often really just individuals who are lonely. However, there is also the crucial difference between “wicked” and “different.” Often, society equates those who are outcasts, those who are different from us, as those who are “wicked,” but the musical goes on to exemplify that that’s not the case.

2. Our differences can be our greatest strengths.

There is a line in the song “The Wizard and I” that says, “This weird quirk I’ve tried to suppress or hide is a talent that could help me meet the wizard if I make good.” The things that make us different from other people, which are often the things that we tend to want to hide, can be used to do good in the world. For me, the “weird quirks” that make me different from others include things like being in a wheelchair and being absolutely obsessed I mean obsessed with spicy tuna rolls. The song is a great reminder to embrace these differences and somehow use them to connect with others and “make good.”

3. First impressions are not as crucial as we make them out to be.

Elphaba and Glinda are not the best of friends right off the bat — in fact, they are filled with “unadulterated loathing” and “total detestation” upon finding out they are roommates. If this is the case, there is hope for anyone to become friends. Even that one person in your class you think is obnoxious or that person in your hall you just didn’t click with at first.

4. Sometimes we have to just keep “dancing through life.”

Fiyero sings that “life is fraught less when you’re thoughtless.” Though this may not be the best motto to live by on a day to day basis, I was reminded not to take myself too seriously all the time. Here at Stanford, life is portrayed as a climb uphill towards graduation, a battle for accomplishments, a race to success. However, Fiyero reminds us otherwise. Life can be a dance, a fun party to simply enjoy. “It’s just life, and we’re dancing through.”

5. Doing what you’re passionate about is attractive.

Speaking of Fiyero, can we mention his voice? I’ve always had a weak spot for guys who can sing (take notes, future husband), but in general, I was reminded that the sight (or sound) of someone being passionate about what they do – whether that is singing, playing basketball or anything else – is more attractive than their looks could be.

6. Idina Menzel has an amazing range.

The high notes she sits in “Defying Gravity” versus the low notes she hits in “I’m Not That Girl” never fail to impress me.

7. Popularity is laughable.

“Celebrated heads of state or especially great communicators — did they have brains or knowledge? Don’t make me laugh! They were popular! Please, it’s all about popular.” Kristin Chenoweth sings these lyrics, which are meant to be laughable yet are also quite terrifying due to the truth behind the satire. While I used to think that popularity was merely a concept that would rule middle school, this song quickly reminded me that the seeming importance of popularity does not go away as people mature. In college, in the workforce and beyond, charismatic, popular people tend to thrive. It’s a truth. However, as Glinda made me laugh during the song “Popular,” I was reminded that the concept of popularity is something we can laugh at.

8. People will let us down…

Spoiler alert! The Wizard of Oz does not end up being the wonderful wizard everyone makes him out to be — in fact, he is merely a cowardly human who enjoyed people calling him “wonderful.” In this manner, people will let us down because we are exactly that — human. My parents who I think are superheroes, my professors who I think are geniuses, my friends who I trust to be there for me are all merely humans who have the capability of failing.

 9.But people also change for good.

It is unfair of me to think that an individual who does wrong once will never change, will always let others down. As Elphaba and Glinda sing in their iconic duet “For Good,” individuals have the immense power to change each other “for good,” which indicates two things: People change both for the better and forever.

10. Stand up for what you believe in.

It’s cliche, but you can never hear it too many times. This imperative message is reiterated as Elphaba goes against what all of society tells her to do by leaving Oz. At times, it is necessary to “defy gravity” in this manner and do what you think — what you know — is right despite opposition. So right now, instead of working on what I need to get done, I’m going to go listen to the Wicked soundtrack once again because I’m obsessed and because I believe in the messages it teaches me.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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No turkey for me https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/28/no-turkey-for-me/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/28/no-turkey-for-me/#respond Wed, 28 Nov 2018 12:20:03 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1147277 Each year, my family does the whole Thanksgiving sha-bang. We make a turkey (or buy it on years we’re feeling lazy) and fill our dining table with a cornucopia of foods — stuffing, cranberry sauce, cornbread. We gather around the dining room table instead of the regular kitchen table, sometimes with family from out of […]

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Each year, my family does the whole Thanksgiving sha-bang. We make a turkey (or buy it on years we’re feeling lazy) and fill our dining table with a cornucopia of foods — stuffing, cranberry sauce, cornbread. We gather around the dining room table instead of the regular kitchen table, sometimes with family from out of town, sometimes with friends who are more like family. We watch the Macy’s parade, we stuff our stomachs, we start decorating our house for Christmas. We have the stereotypical American Thanksgiving Day festivities, and it is one of my favorite holidays.

However, this year, I did none of these things. In fact, I didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving at all because my family and I spent Thanksgiving in Korea where Thanksgiving is not a holiday.

Last week, I took a 12-hour flight to Seoul, Korea where most of my extended family live. As my grandparents are aging and not in the best health, my parents and I wanted to take this opportunity of a break in order to spend time with them, even though a week is quite a short amount of time to travel halfway around the world to.

My time in Seoul was memorable, fun and meaningful, though I still couldn’t help feeling as though I was missing out on the traditional Thanksgiving celebration. I mean, what can I say, I love cornbread and pumpkin pie. Instead of indulging in such delicious foods and holiday spirit, here’s how my Thanksgiving Day went in Korea.

I woke up early, thanks to the 17-hour time difference, and watched some TV for a while. My aunts came over to my grandma’s house, and we chatted about everything from the latest celebrity news to the state of education in Korea. My cousins were at school meanwhile, since there was no such thing as a Thanksgiving break for them. My mom got a haircut, we had lunch — it was like a normal day, nothing special. Nobody even mentioned Thanksgiving, and at dinner with some other extended family that night, my aunt asked me why I had school off this week. “Oh yeah, Thanksgiving,” she said in response to my answer.

For dinner, we didn’t have turkey, but the table at the restaurant we went to was filled completely with Korean barbecue instead. Squash soup replaced mashed potatoes and gravy, sushi and beef replaced turkey, while rice took stuffing’s place. There was no cranberry sauce on the table, just bean paste sauce for our lettuce wraps.

We didn’t go around the dinner table explicitly saying what we were thankful for, as do many on Thanksgiving, but we did talk about how grateful we were to see each other, the first time in months for some, years for others. Sitting at the dinner table surrounded by family, feeling incredibly grateful for each other despite the fact that I was one of the only people in the room that acknowledged the day as a holiday — this proved to me that we don’t need Thanksgiving to be thankful. I can be and am thankful whenever and wherever, whether it’s a day dedicated to giving thanks or not, whether there’s a turkey in front of me or not.

So although this Thanksgiving I was at a different kind of table at a different kind of place, I was surrounded by good food and great family, giving thanks all the same.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu

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Taking a sick day https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/14/taking-a-sick-day/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/14/taking-a-sick-day/#respond Wed, 14 Nov 2018 09:00:33 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1146808 Sneezes, coughs, sniffles — I’ve been hearing a lot of these noises on campus as we are deep in the middle of fall quarter. A college campus is a place where you’re just begging to get sick — you’re living in close quarters, germs everywhere, always on the go and rarely have time to rest […]

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Sneezes, coughs, sniffles — I’ve been hearing a lot of these noises on campus as we are deep in the middle of fall quarter. A college campus is a place where you’re just begging to get sick — you’re living in close quarters, germs everywhere, always on the go and rarely have time to rest your body.

I’ve been lucky enough that I did not get sick my entire freshman year. But this past week, as a sophomore, I experienced what it was like to be sick at college for the first time. I woke up on Monday morning and just knew: I was not going to get out of bed today.

While still lying in bed, I pulled up Microsoft Outlook on my phone to write an email to my professors. The two classes I had that day were seminar-style, so my absence would definitely be noticed. Great. Luckily, both of my instructors wrote back with very understanding, warm-hearted thoughts. One of them even said I was the ninth student to email her about being sick.

Despite having a legitimate excuse to miss class, I felt a knot in my stomach — a looming guilt — as I continued to lie in bed and watch some episodes of Friends on Netflix. Missing just one class in the quarter system makes you feel like you’re so behind — for classes that meet only once a week, for example, missing twice means you didn’t take a fifth of the course. I thought about this as I pulled the covers over myself even higher, clicking “Skip Intro” for the next episode of the TV show. There was so much I could’ve been doing at that time. I thought to myself, maybe I should get up and do some homework in my pajamas — that counts as rest, right?

Fear of missing out (FOMO), in this manner, extends beyond the social aspects of life. Yes, being sick meant I had to choose between going off campus with friends and staying in bed, between prioritizing my mental health (by spending time hanging out with friends) and prioritizing my physical health (by staying in). However, more than this, as twisted as it sounds, I felt a fear of missing out on class — on work. A fear of missing out on time that I could spend being “productive.” It didn’t help that my sickness wasn’t too serious — it wasn’t like I had pneumonia or bronchitis, I just had a cold. I felt like I should just be able push through and work so I wouldn’t get behind.

This, I realized, was how my little cold had the potential to grow into a bigger issue, how destructive my mindset of “just pushing through it” out of FOMO really was. What would really happen if I missed one class, or got a little behind, or didn’t hang out with friends for a weekend?

The answer, I discovered, is simple: nothing, really. I could make up work for a class, or catch back up, or hang out with them the next weekend. I could also not do any of those things. I could stay a little behind, and it wouldn’t be the end of the world because there are more important things in life like rest. Full, deep, whole, complete rest. And no, doing your homework in bed wearing your pajamas doesn’t count as rest. Allowing your body, your mind, your soul to do absolutely nothing and be okay with it — that is rest.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

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Using time while on the go https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/08/using-time-while-on-the-go/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/08/using-time-while-on-the-go/#respond Thu, 08 Nov 2018 10:00:12 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1146447 On the average day, I spend about an hour and a half to two hours simply on the go, – moving from place to place on campus. Since I use a motorized wheelchair to get around, I give myself about 12-15 minutes to get from one destination to another. I mean, campus is huge. According […]

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On the average day, I spend about an hour and a half to two hours simply on the go, – moving from place to place on campus. Since I use a motorized wheelchair to get around, I give myself about 12-15 minutes to get from one destination to another. I mean, campus is huge. According to my best friend (who’s a tour guide here), 96 Disneylands can fit on Stanford’s property. Despite the enormity of our campus, I assume 15 minutes is slightly more time than a biker may take to move from one place to another, or perhaps slightly less time than a walker takes. With this 15 minutes as a gauge, however, it is true that around two hours of my day are snagged – just moving from one place to another. 

One day of the week, I go from my dorm on east campus to a class in Main Quad, and back to my dorm for an hour break before a meeting back on Main Quad. Then, I move to a class in Encina Hall, followed by another class back on Main Quad. After classes, I head back to my dorm to do some homework, meet a friend for a meal at a dining hall, then visit Old Union for a club meeting before settling down once and for all in my dorm room  – until the next day when I go through a similar schedule all over again. I just described my Wednesdays, and in that case, that means I spent two hours and 15 minutes on the go.

Now, there’s a lot you can do in two hours and 15 minutes. You could knock out a huge chunk of a problem set, you could catch up with several friends, you could watch a long movie, you could read a short book (or maybe a long one, if you read fast) or you could take four power naps. The possibilities are endless. At first, when I realized this, I was shocked and outraged. What a waste of time! If I’d gone to a school that had a smaller campus, would I have gained two hours every day?

However, upon re-examining the situation, I thought: Yes, there’s a lot you can do in two hours, but there’s a lot you can do in the two hours that you’re on the go, too. Here at Stanford, the culture is to go, go, go – as I exemplified in my daily schedule above. Stanford tells you: Be productive so that you can get ahead, or even just keep up, so that you can succeed in the future. Two hours, or eight 15-minute intervals throughout the day, when you’re transporting yourself from one place to another is a great time to relax, debrief with yourself and enjoy the scenery of the beautiful campus around you.

Perhaps you could use the time on the go to examine the nature around you, or perhaps you could use the time to pray or meditate. Perhaps you could use the time moving from one place to the other to reflect on what happened at your previous location, or how you want to spend your time at the next location. Perhaps you could spend the time thinking about things you’re thankful for, or smiling and waving hi to friendly faces, or even strangers on campus. Or perhaps, you could use that time to think about absolutely nothing (besides, “Oh, I better not crash with that bike”). We’re always thinking – and sometimes, you need that time to think about absolutely nothing.

In this manner, I’ve discovered that there are numerous ways you can spend your time being productive in different ways, even while on the go. And I can’t wait to test it out on my way to my next meeting after submitting this article.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Daily sounds: Things I hear on campus https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/26/daily-sounds-things-i-hear-on-campus/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/26/daily-sounds-things-i-hear-on-campus/#respond Fri, 26 Oct 2018 08:53:05 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1145640 In my intermediate fiction writing class, we did a writing exercise where we were supposed to write a scene, but restrict ourselves by pretending phones, Internet and other technology did not exist in our character’s town. Placing a restriction like this on your writing forces you to analyze what is truly necessary to convey your […]

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In my intermediate fiction writing class, we did a writing exercise where we were supposed to write a scene, but restrict ourselves by pretending phones, Internet and other technology did not exist in our character’s town. Placing a restriction like this on your writing forces you to analyze what is truly necessary to convey your message. Ever since doing this exercise, I have been fascinated with putting different limitations on my own writing and seeing what that reveals about my character, about the story or even about myself. I decided to turn this article into a similar exercise, placing restrictions on what I can write. Here is a day in my life on campus, only described in sounds:

My day begins with Alexa, my Amazon Echo, waking me up with an upward tri-tone – three notes repeat over and over again until I finally grumble, “Alexa, stop.” The hallway is silent on my trip down to the bathroom. There I hear the sounds of the faucet running, the foamy soap squirting out of its dispenser, my toothbrush brushing back and forth against my teeth, the pushing down of the paper towel dispenser (three or four loud pushes), the rolling of toilet paper and the flushing of the toilet before I head back out into the hallway, where silence returns. I break the silence with a high-pitched mix of a yawn and a sigh.

Back in my room, my mini refrigerator hums while the plastic wrapper of my granola bar (my breakfast) makes a crinkling noise. The zip of my backpack and the slamming of my door are the last things I hear before I head outside to be greeted by the joyous sounds of birds chirping, leaves crunching and squirrels scurrying, as well as the contrarily unpleasant sounds of jackhammers, bulldozers off in the near distance – the ceaseless construction by Casper Quad.

Out on Escondido Road, the motor of my wheelchair drums on, a rare sound amongst the common pedaling and rolling of bicycle wheels. It is oddly silent besides the quiet axles of bike wheels turning – an occasional “hey,” but not much else, only the sounds of people heading where they need to go.

In classes, professors lecture enthusiastically – the sounds of their voices are occasionally accompanied by the low laughter of the students when a joke is made. The typing of keyboards, the scribbling of pen against paper and the flipping of loose leaf paper are all ambient noises in class, interrupted by the intermittent sneeze or cough of a sick student or the opening and closing of class door by a latecomer.

In the dining hall, the friendly “hello” from the worker who swipes my student ID with a swoosh precedes the clinking and clanking of bowls, forks and knives scraping against plates, loud chitchat of students, sudden bursts of laughter, equally sudden groans of frustration and the latest pop hits playing in the background of it all. I hear the latest life updates from my friends; the joys, the sadness, the stress and the excitement are all in their voices.  

In my dorm, the muffled sounds of students practicing the piano, violin or oboe in the music practice room located right under me are overpowered by the playlists I turn on using Spotify, usually K-pop or “Today’s Top Hits.” Every once in a while, footsteps pass outside my room and neighbors rummage through their backpacks to find their keys and unlock their doors. Typing, typing, more typing on my keyboard as I work through my papers or problem sets.

At the end of the day, the last things I hear are the sound of my own voice, “Alexa, set alarm for 8:15 a.m.,” and Alexa’s response, “Alarm set for 8:15 a.m. tomorrow.”

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

       

 

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The old debate: East or West Campus? https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/19/the-old-debate-east-or-west-campus/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/19/the-old-debate-east-or-west-campus/#respond Fri, 19 Oct 2018 09:00:47 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1145155 East Campus or West Campus? Which side is better? This is a long-contested debate on Stanford’s campus. As a freshman, I lived on West Campus, and now, as a sophomore, I live on East Campus. So, if I may say so myself, I believe I have the knowledge and credibility to give a proper assessment […]

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East Campus or West Campus? Which side is better? This is a long-contested debate on Stanford’s campus. As a freshman, I lived on West Campus, and now, as a sophomore, I live on East Campus. So, if I may say so myself, I believe I have the knowledge and credibility to give a proper assessment of this topic. So without further ado, let me enlighten you on some of the pros of living on both East and West Campus – at least in my opinion.

Points for East Campus:

1. More vibrant, lively vibe

As an incoming frosh, I will admit it: I was devastated to be informed that I would be living in a four-class dorm. Not only that, but a four-class dorm on West Campus. From the abundant YouTube videos, blog posts, pamphlets and Quora conversations about Stanford I’d devoured before coming here, I knew that most of the frosh dorms were densely congregated on East Campus, so I was afraid of not being able to meet a large variety of freshmen. This is partially true. While I ended up loving living on West Campus, as I’ll explain shortly, I feel as if I mainly bonded with the 60 freshmen that were in my four-class dorm. While I did have friends from clubs and classes on East Campus, venturing over to visit them seemed like too much effort after a long day of classes. Now, living on East Campus, I’ve noticed there are simply more people – more people that I can meet and more people nearby that I can visit. This makes the “vibe” of East Campus livelier.

2. Bigger variety of dining hall options

On West Campus, the only dining hall option is Lakeside. Well, there’s Ricker – but that’s so far west that most people aren’t even sure if it counts as being on campus. Living on East Campus has made my stomach a lot happier, not necessarily because the quality of food is better, but because there are more choices of food. Want a burrito bowl? Head on over to Stern. Craving Asian food, whether it’s “real” or not? Visit Wilbur for a meal. Need a good location to have a quick meal before heading back to class? Stop by Arrillaga. Oh, and about what I said earlier regarding better quality of food, I lied. Casper and Branner have better quality of food, objectively.

Points for West Campus:

1. Better location

This point may be highly controversial, but I am convinced that West Campus is better in terms of getting places easily on campus. East Campus residents complain that West Campus is so far from everything, but from where I lived in Lagunita Court, it was extremely convenient to get to Tresidder, the Main Quad, the Engineering Quad and even the Row. Plus, living on West Campus means you are close to places like Windhover, the educational farm and Stanford Shopping Center – cool places to explore when you have some free time. From the East Campus residences, you have to first go down Escondido Road for a good length of time and pass Meyer Green before you can really get anywhere.

2. Less crowded

While I do love the vibrant nature of East Campus and the ability to meet many friends, old and new, I have had and witnessed more close calls for biking accidents in my three weeks of living on East Campus than I did in the entirety of last year. Perhaps this is due to the fact it was freshman year, but I also feel that last year, on West Campus, there was more of a close-knit community amongst residents – not just within the dorm, but within the whole west side of campus. Since we all shared one dining hall, I would see friendly faces from various West Campus dorms while having a meal, or while walking down Santa Teresa Street.

Perhaps I have been brainwashed as my dorm last year ingrained chants such as “West Side, Best Side” and “West Lag, Best Lag” into my head, but so far, I am still partial towards the west side as the better half of campus. But who knows, maybe after a year of living on East Campus I won’t want to leave. Either way, if you have the chance, I think it is worth experiencing both sides of campus during your years at Stanford. It’s a whole new world on the other side.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

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Underestimating my need for help and the help I’d receive https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/09/underestimating-my-need-for-help-and-the-help-id-receive/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/09/underestimating-my-need-for-help-and-the-help-id-receive/#respond Tue, 09 Oct 2018 09:00:01 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1144430 I have always thought that asking for help was not a positive thing to do. Surely, I didn’t think it was a negative thing to do — it is good to request support when you need it — but it wasn’t a positive thing, either. As an individual with a physical disability, I require help […]

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I have always thought that asking for help was not a positive thing to do. Surely, I didn’t think it was a negative thing to do — it is good to request support when you need it — but it wasn’t a positive thing, either. As an individual with a physical disability, I require help with nearly all physical activities of daily living. Perhaps because of this, I viewed asking for help as putting a slight burden on someone else, as a sign of my lack of independence. Hence, I avoided asking for help with any non-physical aspect of my life, such as my intellectual capacity or my emotional capacity, as much as I could.

And quite frankly, I didn’t feel an urging need for help in these areas of my life before coming to college. Of course, I needed extra help on a few tough homework assignments in high school or emotional support from my friends when I had rough days. In general, though, I was smooth sailing — intellectually and emotionally. As the essay prompt on the Stanford application states, the immensely diverse students here have one thing in common: intellectual vitality. Mostly, the people coming into Stanford are the ones who “had it together” in high school, or those who struggled but overcame their challenges. That’s what makes this campus such a vibrant, intellectually invigorating place.

However, it didn’t take me long after getting here to realize that I was going to need a lot of help — both intellectually and emotionally. From figuring out how to schedule classes to solving difficult problem sets, I needed as much help as I could get, whether that was in the form of making study groups, spending extra time at office hours or voraciously reading course reviews on Carta. At my high school, nearly 400 students were assigned to one guidance counselor. Though the counselors did their best to guide us through academic life, there was only so much attention they could give to each individual student. For this reason, I have never been in the habit of thinking guidance counselors or advisers would be very useful.

I approached the advisers here at Stanford with the same mindset. I went into meetings with my Academic Advising Directors, Pre-Major Adviser and now Major Adviser with hesitancy, but I left pleasantly surprised. Each time I meet with an adviser, I leave feeling informed, relieved and greatly helped. Maybe I’ve gotten lucky with great advisers, but I now realize that I have been underestimating my need for help, and underestimating the help I’d receive.

This is also true of emotional and spiritual aspects of my life. College was the first time I was living away from home, which can be emotionally difficult in and of itself, but it was also the first time I was living caregivers who weren’t my parents — to help me with physical activities of daily living. It was the first time I had to make completely new friends, as I grew attended K-12th grade in the same school district. Facing these emotional challenges, I experienced an immense need for emotional and spiritual help, which I found in great friends, as well as in Reformed University Fellowship.

Dictionary.com defines to help as “to give or provide what is necessary to accomplish a task or satisfy a need” or “to cooperate effectively with.” What is necessary. To cooperate with. My recent experiences in reaching out for help, both physically and emotionally, have redefined the way I view asking for help. It is not a good thing or a bad thing. It is a necessity. It is not a burden on others. It is an act of cooperation. After realizing this, I have made a new goal for myself: to help and to be helped.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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My second first day of college https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/02/my-second-first-day-of-college/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/10/02/my-second-first-day-of-college/#respond Tue, 02 Oct 2018 09:00:07 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1144168 Since first grade, my best friend and I have gotten together after our first day of school to give a moment by moment account of what happened on our day: who we sat next to, how our teachers were, embarrassing moments we had, any cute guys we met, the whole deal. Now that we’re in […]

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Since first grade, my best friend and I have gotten together after our first day of school to give a moment by moment account of what happened on our day: who we sat next to, how our teachers were, embarrassing moments we had, any cute guys we met, the whole deal. Now that we’re in different states at different colleges, we have to give each other the first day rundown over FaceTime. On Wednesday of week one, I had the expected FaceTime date with my best friend, but the conversation was extremely different from our conversation from last year. Last year, as a freshman, every single aspect of college was new — a campus waiting to be explored, friends yet to be made, professors still unmet, funky Stanford traditions unknown.

When I moved in on the Saturday before classes started there were no RAs screaming my name as I entered the dorm and there were no scheduled activities where I could meet other students. After my family and I moved my things into my room, I was faced with the question, now what? I texted a friend and grabbed dinner with her before visiting another friend’s room. What a different feeling it was actually knowing people the moment I stepped on campus, having friends to come home to. I immediately felt at ease, happy to be back at a familiar place with familiar people — quite the opposite of what I experienced last year.

As I headed back to my dorm after a Stanford Daily meeting around 9:30 p.m. last Sunday, I heard some tubas, trombones, drums and shouts. I also saw a few police cars beginning to block off Escondido Road. Ah, Band Run. My heart felt a little bit of a pang as I thought back to last year’s Band Run — how chaotic it felt, how lucky I was to meet my now best friend at college, how overwhelming the running, shouting, crazy-band-playing was. I smiled, excited for and jealous of the freshmen who were likely experiencing those emotions. I was jealous of all they had ahead of them, the excitement they must have been feeling due to the mere fact that they were here. On the other hand, I wasn’t the least bit jealous of the nervousness, the lostness they may have been feeling simultaneously. As I ducked into a different road to avoid the crowd, I was once again reminded of how different things were now. I even knew shortcuts on this campus which felt so big and impossible to navigate a year earlier.

Every year since middle school, I’ve woken up earlier than my alarm on the first day of classes. Perhaps my subconscious is anxious for the new year starting, or afraid of starting the year off being late. This happened to me this year as well. Last Monday my body woke me up at 7:30 a.m., which was much earlier than I needed to be up before my first class. I couldn’t help noticing all my “seconds” and comparing them with my “firsts.” My first class freshman year was a Thinking Matters class called Stories Everywhere, and now I’d be attending a Human Biology class. My first first meal was salmon, and my second first meal would be fried rice (I knew to avoid the usually dry chicken). My first time looking for classrooms in Main Quad, I left 30 minutes early. Now, I know exactly where the Geology Corner is. The first student group I’d joined was the Stanford Daily; now I was tabling at Activities Fair explaining the different sections of the paper to freshmen.

As I look forward into the year, I am realizing that a lot of my “firsts” of college are behind me. I am nostalgic. I am relieved. I am sad that time seems to be passing so quickly and I am excited for new adventures to come. I look forward to my “seconds” spent at this incredible, stressful, healing, stimulating place with incredible, stressed, healing, stimulating people — both old and new.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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On having a ‘productive’ summer experience https://stanforddaily.com/2018/09/25/on-having-a-productive-summer-experience/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/09/25/on-having-a-productive-summer-experience/#respond Tue, 25 Sep 2018 09:00:23 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1143832 This past summer I had the opportunity to work as a Marketing and Communications intern at an environmental non-profit in the Bay Area. It was a part-time commitment and a remote internship, meaning I could work from wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Besides a weekly conference call with my boss updating her on what […]

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This past summer I had the opportunity to work as a Marketing and Communications intern at an environmental non-profit in the Bay Area. It was a part-time commitment and a remote internship, meaning I could work from wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Besides a weekly conference call with my boss updating her on what I’d worked on, I was free to finish the assigned tasks at my leisure. I don’t mean to undermine the work that I did because it was important, meaningful and a great learning experience, but it was not demanding by any means, and I found myself wondering if I was not getting the true “internship” experience.

 I had friends who interned in different countries like the UK or China, friends who worked at well-known companies in the Silicon Valley or New York, friends who stayed on campus pursuing research, among other amazing opportunities. And then there I was at home in my room, sitting on my laptop for my internship. Compared to the people who were waking up early, commuting to their workplace, meeting co-workers, dealing with bosses and producing tangible results in their project, I felt like I was being less productive, like my work was less valuable. Perhaps in some ways, that was true – I wasn’t getting the real-life experience of going to work.

However, I would not change my remote internship experience for another summer opportunity. This realization came upon me after changing my mindset about how I was defining “productive” and “valuable.” Doing a remote internship taught me the valuable skill of time management – learning how and when to get projects done without strict deadlines or assigned hours of work. It also taught me crucial communication skills, as the primary interactions I had with my bosses and co-workers were through email. Because of this, I learned to be succinct yet clear, formal yet friendly in my online communications.

Furthermore, due to the mission of the non-profit I worked for, my remote internship taught me about the importance of everyone’s role in conserving our environment. Did you know that at the current rate of littering there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by weight in 2050? Gaining such skills and knowledge, I realized, is what made my experience extremely “valuable” for me.

More importantly, over the summer I redefined what it means to be “productive” in my eyes. Yes, getting summer experience in the field you want to pursue as a career is productive. Yes, making connections and networking with people is productive. Yes, having one more line you can put on your resume is productive. However, the remote internship gave me the time and flexibility to be productive in different ways.

When I wasn’t working on internship projects, I checked 15 books off of my “want-to-read” list. I wrote fiction for fun, which is one of my biggest passions that I never seem to make time for. I hung out with my high school friends and caught up on their college lives. I spent time with family members who visited from out of the country. I stayed at home and enjoyed my mom’s home-cooked meals every day, something I miss desperately during the school year.`

So yes, I may not have gotten the most hardcore, hands-on, nine-to-five work experience this summer, but I acquired a lot through the remote internship. And most importantly, I had the majority of the summer to explore my passions, spend time with loved ones and get well-rested both physically and mentally. If that’s not productive, I don’t know what is.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Functions of a library https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/29/functions-of-a-library-3/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/29/functions-of-a-library-3/#respond Tue, 29 May 2018 08:18:31 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1141639 When I was little, the library was one of my favorite places to go. I loved everything about it: its smell, the atmosphere, the ability to check out as many books as I wanted. I loved taking a stack of books to the checkout counter and sliding each book under the scanner, listening to the […]

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When I was little, the library was one of my favorite places to go. I loved everything about it: its smell, the atmosphere, the ability to check out as many books as I wanted. I loved taking a stack of books to the checkout counter and sliding each book under the scanner, listening to the satisfying two-toned, low beep indicating I had checked it out successfully. I loved getting my first library card when I became old enough and signing my name on the back of it. I remember my neighborhood’s public library had a reading log program, where if you read a certain number of books in a month and turned in the log, you would be eligible to win a prize. I loved the prizes.

Throughout elementary and middle school, I went to the library constantly — both the city’s public library and my school library. I would read every minute of my free time — my favorite series was the A to Z Mysteries until I graduated to the Mysterious Benedict Society. Rarely did I have to renew a book, as I’d devour it up and return to the library to check out the next set of books.

In high school, my concept of a library changed. The library was the place to hang out during study hall, to chat in a loud whisper and get yelled at by a librarian. It was a place to study for tests, or log into a computer to use the Internet for something (we weren’t allowed to use personal laptops at school). It was the place where my student government meetings took place after school on Wednesday afternoons. It was also a shortcut between one side of the school and the other.

However, I never checked out a single book from my high school’s library. I lament the fact that I did not make as much time to read non-required texts throughout high school, and I still neglect to read much in my free time  now. I would use the excuse that I was and am too busy with other things, but that would be exactly that: just an excuse. However, part of the reason I didn’t read as much, I think, can be attributed to the way many students’ conception of a library’s purpose changes in high school.

My impression of a library’s purpose has changed once again in college. Now, a library is a place you go to when you really need a quiet space to get work done. A place where you stress out about finals. A place where you go to find print sources for your PWR paper. A place with “special collections” and other sources of old documents, first drafts of stories or otherwise unattainable resources for study. I’m sure I could spend a year exploring all of the resources in Green Library, and that’s only one of the libraries on campus.

This week, for the first time all year, I went to Green to check out a book to read in my free time. As I was searching through the West Stacks for the book I wanted to read, I felt like I was six years old again, thrilled at the simple idea of checking out a book to enjoy for free — excited at the opportunity to read just for the sake of reading. Though I was disappointed that I didn’t get to scan the book out myself, I can’t wait to indulge in this book and go back for more.

If you’re like me and have not checked a book out from the library just for fun in a while, I encourage you to do so. I hope this serves as a reminder that yes, a library is a place to study or to research. However, it is also (and primarily) a place filled to the brim with stories to explore – stories to be taken home and enjoyed each and every day.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Why I’m jealous of the incoming freshmen https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/21/why-im-jealous-of-the-incoming-freshmen/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/21/why-im-jealous-of-the-incoming-freshmen/#respond Mon, 21 May 2018 08:50:14 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1142477 With May as the month of college decisions coming out and college commitments being made, my Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook feeds have been filled with posts featuring pictures of beaming high school seniors wearing college t-shirts captioned something along the lines of: “Incredibly excited to announce that I will be attending (insert university) to study (insert […]

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With May as the month of college decisions coming out and college commitments being made, my Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook feeds have been filled with posts featuring pictures of beaming high school seniors wearing college t-shirts captioned something along the lines of: “Incredibly excited to announce that I will be attending (insert university) to study (insert area of study)!”

For some reason, whenever I see one of these posts, I find myself envious of the high school senior. Especially during Admit Weekend here at Stanford, seeing all of the prospective freshmen bustling around campus with their Admit Weekend lanyards and bright cardinal Stanford folders evoked a sense of jealousy in me. It was odd. I had gotten into Stanford just like them, and moreover, I was at Stanford already, which was where these students were headed. I was in their position, if not ahead — so why was I so jealous of them?

My freshman year has been great. There have been ups and downs, tears of joy and tears of stress, but overall, I had an extremely positive experience, and I really mean that. I distinctly remember an instance back in the fall when a senior told me, “You’re so cute. You’re so excited.” She did not mean this in a sardonic way — I think she genuinely found my enthusiasm refreshing, as she was a self-proclaimed “jaded senior” ready to graduate. Though I’ll admit the giddy, over-the-moon excited feeling that I entered campus with in the fall has faded, I consider myself so blessed to have found what I truly think is the right fit for me in terms of college.

I wondered, perhaps, if my jealousy of the incoming freshmen stemmed from a desire of mine to repeat freshman year since I had such a positive experience overall. However, I quickly ruled this speculation out. I believe I have developed a lot as a student, a friend and a human during this past year, trying new things, failing at them sometimes, succeeding at them other times and dealing with “adult situations” (I spent an hour on the phone with a bank one day and had to go through the experience of firing someone — so “adult,” I know). I’ve made it past the awkward small-talk stages of freshman year and now have people on campus I can call my best friends. I would never want to undo or re-do these developments. I’m ready to move on, push further, and grow more here at Stanford.

Yet I’m sad I won’t be a freshman anymore. I like being excited. I like the newness of everything about college, of discovering places on campus, of asking upperclassmen “Hi, I know this is such a freshman thing to ask, but where is (insert obvious location)?” I like the fact that, at least at our school, we do not have to be tied down to a major our freshman year and have many opportunities to explore classes. I like the freshman dorm family, the freshman class pride and the freshman experience bond. I just like being a freshman. And I guess I’m jealous of the incoming freshman, no matter what college they will be attending, because they get to go through these experiences next.

So to the incoming freshmen, I know this is cliché, but get excited, because you really do have so much ahead of you. As for me, I’ll be working on making my sophomore year just as great and full of developments, so that around this time next year, I can write a piece on why I’m jealous of the incoming sophomores.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Song lyrics as inspiration https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/15/song-lyrics-as-inspiration/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/15/song-lyrics-as-inspiration/#respond Tue, 15 May 2018 09:00:06 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1141007 Amidst the stress of midterms and life in general, I often look to music for solace. Music is a magical thing; too often I put music in the “background” of my life. It’s on in the background when I’m driving somewhere, when I’m doing my homework or when I’m taking a walk. However, when I […]

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Amidst the stress of midterms and life in general, I often look to music for solace. Music is a magical thing; too often I put music in the “background” of my life. It’s on in the background when I’m driving somewhere, when I’m doing my homework or when I’m taking a walk. However, when I do take time to make listening to music my primary activity and not a secondary one — when I really just sit there and listen — I am amazed. I made a conscious effort to do this last week — to really pay attention to the music, the lyrics and their meaning instead of having it on in the background. Upon doing so, certain song lyrics that I’d heard a million times before and that I could probably sing in my sleep inspired me in a way they never had before. Here are some reflections on song lyrics that I heard last week that served as pick-me-ups. Hopefully they do for you, too.

“Here comes the sun, and I say it’s all right.”

I heard someone on my floor blasting this classic Beatles song from their room over the weekend. I’m not quite sure which room it was coming from, but thank you to whoever played it and brought an old but amazing tune back into my head. After involuntarily humming the song over and over again throughout the week, I stopped to actually think about what I was singing. It got me thinking about the fact that amidst all the inconsistencies, the struggles, the darkness that life sometimes entails, the sun always rises again the next day. It is guaranteed — something that we can depend on. Every morning, we have the opportunity to start a new day both literally and figuratively — to look at the sky and say, “here comes the sun” — and because of this, everything is all right.

“Don’t read the last page, but I stay when you’re lost and I’m scared and you’re turning away.”

One of my friends is a Taylor Swift fanatic and urged me to listen to the song “New Year’s Day” from her latest album. My friend was right to implore me to listen — I love the song, especially this specific lyric, for it led me to imagine the concept of a “last page” of my story. This could have been a somber thought, but in a strange way, it comforted me. Though there is much uncertainty in our day to day lives, there is a certain and definite end — and hopefully, as Taylor says, a happy end despite being lost and scared along the way. We just don’t know it yet. And why would we want to spoil the ending, anyway? The ups and the downs are all just necessary parts of our stories.

“Strength doesn’t lie in numbers. Strength doesn’t lie in wealth. Strength lies in nights of peaceful slumber.”

I had the immense pleasure of watching my favorite movie of all time, “The Sound of Music,” for the millionth time this week. These lyrics come from the song, “I Have Confidence,” one of the many tunes in the movie soundtrack that makes it impossible not to sing along with Julie Andrews’s beautiful voice. While I’ve been singing along to these three lines for over a decade now, they became notably special to me just this week. They were a friendly reminder that being strong does not mean being successful, being wealthy, being powerful, or even being happy. Being strong is as simple as surviving, as going to bed after a long, long day.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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The idea of pleasure reading https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/08/the-idea-of-pleasure-reading/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/05/08/the-idea-of-pleasure-reading/#respond Tue, 08 May 2018 08:00:27 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1140682 I like to find different spots to read on campus. Some of my favorite reading spots include the Coupa Café by Y2E2, the outdoor tables at the Hoover Institution, the Lane Reading Room in Green Library and this random picnic table on the side of Main Quad, right outside where my Psychology class is. I […]

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I like to find different spots to read on campus. Some of my favorite reading spots include the Coupa Café by Y2E2, the outdoor tables at the Hoover Institution, the Lane Reading Room in Green Library and this random picnic table on the side of Main Quad, right outside where my Psychology class is. I highly recommend going to one of these spots on a nice, sunny day when you have reading to do. Though I love these places, I most often find myself reading in my dorm lounge, out of convenience due to close proximity. When I’m sitting in the lounge (or another place on campus) and I see people I know, they often come over and ask, “What are you reading?” and then follow up with, “Is it a fun book or a book for class?”

Every time I hear this question, I find the implication behind it funny and a bit ironic. The terms “fun book” and “pleasure reading” suggest that a certain read is only “for fun” and not out of obligation. I am guilty of using this terminology to refer to non-class-related readings as well. Last quarter, my friend and I scheduled an hour a week to “read for fun,” as we both lamented the fact that we rarely made time to read things that weren’t for a class. Dedicating only one hour per week to “fun reading,” I was only able to read one and a half novels that weren’t for a class during the ten-week period. Still, “pleasure reading” time with my friend was one of my favorite parts of the week.

Recently, however, I have made the conscious effort to avoid calling a book a “fun book” if it isn’t for a class. What makes something fun? Is it the fact that you don’t have to do it? Can you only have “fun” in your free time? I refuse to believe that something is only fun if it is not required. Likewise, I refuse to believe that things that are required for a class or for another obligation are always not fun. By no means am I saying that I thoroughly enjoying fulfilling every single one of my academic obligations or reading every single word of class-readings. However, I do consider many of the required readings not only informative, but also enjoyable. On the other hand, I have also often found books that I read in my free time unenjoyable.

Making a distinction between what is considered a “fun book” and what is not based on whether or not it is required is, in my opinion, detrimental to a love of learning and a love of reading. As a person who used the terms “fun book” and “pleasure reading” myself, I know that people who use such language do not mean to claim that all required-reading is boring or unenjoyable. It is merely a common way of referring to books read in your free time. However, the implicit meaning behind the terms is problematic for me as a book nerd. My determination to stop using this wordage is exemplary of me taking a little stand as a self-proclaimed nerdy, word loving (prospective) English major. I encourage you to consider equating required reading with pleasure reading — it will make all reading a lot more fun.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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A letter to the pro-fros who couldn’t make it to Admit Weekend https://stanforddaily.com/2018/04/30/a-letter-to-the-pro-fros-who-couldnt-make-it-to-admit-weekend/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/04/30/a-letter-to-the-pro-fros-who-couldnt-make-it-to-admit-weekend/#respond Mon, 30 Apr 2018 08:00:18 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1140216 When I was a senior in high school, I had to choose between going to prom and going to Stanford’s Admit Weekend. I chose to go to prom, as I figured it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to have one last hurrah with my high school friends, while I would have four years […]

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When I was a senior in high school, I had to choose between going to prom and going to Stanford’s Admit Weekend. I chose to go to prom, as I figured it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to have one last hurrah with my high school friends, while I would have four years at Stanford to meet people and have a good time. Plus, I had visited campus before and was already pretty sure I would be committing to Stanford. Still, I was worried about missing Admit Weekend – would I miss out on a crucial welcoming experience? Would people already have friends they made at Admit Weekend? Would I be able to make the right college decision without coming to Admit Weekend? Such questions lingered in my head until I set foot on campus for New Student Orientation during the first week of freshman year. Thus, I decided to write a letter to clear up some of these questions for prospective freshmen.

Dear Pro-Fro,

You may be in a similar situation as I was. Perhaps your prom coincided with Admit Weekend, or perhaps you had that one sports tournament your coach didn’t want you to miss, or maybe even your best friend’s birthday party that happened to be the same weekend. You decided to give up Admit Weekend to spend the weekend cherishing your dwindling time in high school. You made the right choice. I know that you are feeling “senioritis” at its peak right now, and that you can’t wait to be done with high school and move on to the next chapter of your life. But believe me, you will miss your friends, your family and your hometown more than you know. Hang on to your last moments with them before you embark on your journey to a brand new world – the world that is Stanford.

The fact that you’re reading this means you’re worried about missing out on Admit Weekend. I was worried too. I lived vicariously on Stanford’s campus starting around April or May, watching every YouTube video about Stanford I could find and reading any Daily article geared towards freshmen. I hope to help quench your thirst to know more about life at Stanford and Admit Weekend with this article.

From what I’ve heard, Admit Weekend is a lot of fun – it consists of touring our beautiful campus, going to various activities ranging from bonfires to water balloon fights and hanging out with current students to get a feel for the “vibe” of the student population. RoHos and HoHos work hard to make this a positive, memorable experience for you all. On the other hand, I also know that it is quite a whirlwind of a weekend. It is only one weekend, and you only get one RoHo — that is not enough to get a real sense of what life would be like at Stanford. It can give you a sneak peek, but do not fret that you won’t know what Stanford is like just because you didn’t come to Admit Weekend.

Some people meet good friends at Admit Weekend who they end up staying close to when they start their freshman year. If it makes you feel better, however, this is rare, as far as I’ve found. You will most definitely not be alone if you arrive on campus for NSO not knowing a single soul. In fact, this is the case for most people. You will not be “behind” in making friends. Admit Weekend is meant for getting a (very, very) general sense of the school, not for meeting your lifelong best friends.  

Ultimately, no matter how cheesy this sounds, Stanford – and any college – is truly what you make it. If you choose to come to Stanford, you will be placed into a sunny, beautiful world with lots of palm trees, quirky school spirit, incredibly passionate people and an abundance of opportunities in academics and extracurricular activities. From there, it is truly up to you to mold your own experience. For what it’s worth, though, I would recommend Stanford, 10 out of 10.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu. 

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How my friendships have developed since fall quarter https://stanforddaily.com/2018/04/23/how-my-friendships-have-developed-since-fall-quarter/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/04/23/how-my-friendships-have-developed-since-fall-quarter/#respond Mon, 23 Apr 2018 08:00:19 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1139787 I am already getting emotional about the fact that my freshman year of college is almost over. It feels like just yesterday that I drove down Palm Drive with my parents in a car packed to the brim with dorm decorations, a nervous and excited knot in my stomach as I saw the huge “Welcome […]

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I am already getting emotional about the fact that my freshman year of college is almost over. It feels like just yesterday that I drove down Palm Drive with my parents in a car packed to the brim with dorm decorations, a nervous and excited knot in my stomach as I saw the huge “Welcome to Stanford” banner hanging at the main entrance to the school. Now, we are getting ready to welcome a new class of trees for Admit Weekend and the weather is back to being perfect. Things have gone full circle.

I’m not going to say Stanford is a paradise because it isn’t — no school is. There have been plenty of ups and downs, but the overall emotion I feel when I consider the fact that one fourth of my time here is over is indeed sadness. My freshman year has been full of lots of growth — academic growth in exploring and expanding my interests, spiritual and emotional growth that came with going through some of the tougher times (winter quarter mood, am I right?), and, most of all, growth in my friendships. Looking back at my freshman year, I think what I am most thankful for is not the abundance of academic or extracurricular opportunities nor the profound professors I’ve developed relationships with. It is the friendships that I have developed. Here is how my friendships have progressed from fall quarter to spring quarter of freshman year.

Fall quarter friendships: Consisted of a lot of small talk (“How’s your week going?” “What classes are you taking?” etc.), worrying about seeming too clingy, occasional deep conversations about the meaning of life and lots of exclamation points in text messages and Facebook posts. This is the slightly annoying yet crucial stage where you are still scoping out your friend’s sense of humor, wondering how they will react if you say something weird. I don’t mean to say that fall quarter friendships are all surface-level; however, there is an inevitable period of getting to know each other that you have to go through.

Winter quarter friendships: This is when you go through the tough times together, and come out with stronger friendships. There are more deep conversations about the meaning of life, sharing life dilemmas with each other, loosening up with your jokes, missing each other if you haven’t seen each other for a day, and seeing things throughout your day and thinking “So and so would love that, or hate that, or think that was funny.” You follow each other’s “finstas.” The exclamation points and emojis in the text messages decline significantly, and you don’t have to ask how their classes are going because you already know. This is when the turning point occurs: when you begin to include college friends in your category of best friends, not just your high school friends.

Spring quarter friendships: This is the stage of friendships where, instead of the overly polite “Hey! I was wondering if you wanted to get lunch tomorrow at 12:30?”, you text your friend “Lunch?” when you start to get hungry and they respond with “Be there in five.” This is when it starts to seem crazy that you have only known these people for a few months — you’ve been through so much together already and you can’t imagine not knowing them. You start to think the concept of dorm life is so cool — you get to live in the same building as your best friends. You start to think it will be weird not seeing them every day in the summer. You become confident that there are people who deeply and genuinely care about you, and you deeply and genuinely care about them.

I’m sure everyone has had different experiences developing friendships throughout their time here at Stanford. For me, this is a snippet of what it felt like; I’m so thankful for this development and wouldn’t have it any other way. Perhaps when I’m a senior, I’ll write a piece for the Daily called “How my friendships have developed since freshman year,” and I can’t wait to see how much my friends and I will have grown even more, as students, as human beings and as individuals who love and care for each other.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu. 

 

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The toxic nature of to-do lists https://stanforddaily.com/2018/04/18/the-toxic-nature-of-to-do-lists/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/04/18/the-toxic-nature-of-to-do-lists/#respond Wed, 18 Apr 2018 08:00:09 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1139553 Recently, I had a sudden and semi-germophobic realization that I should probably clean my computer keyboard more often – maybe even as often as I wash my hands. As a prospective English major who’s also currently exploring classes in Computer Science, my hands are almost always typing away at my keyboard, either working on an […]

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Recently, I had a sudden and semi-germophobic realization that I should probably clean my computer keyboard more often – maybe even as often as I wash my hands. As a prospective English major who’s also currently exploring classes in Computer Science, my hands are almost always typing away at my keyboard, either working on an essay or coding an assignment. I use my keyboard to text and to write emails. Even in my free time, my favorite pastime is writing blog posts or working on stories. The amount of time that I spend using my laptop, staring at a screen and typing away, is extensive.

Every time I open my laptop, an aesthetic picture of a beach or the mountains or some other scenic view fills the screen, only interrupted by huge font displaying the time, wishing me a good evening, and asking: “What is your main focus for today?” This common extension of Google Chrome, called “Momentum,” also displays a motivational quote at the bottom of the screen each day that makes me cringe more often than it inspires me. Today, it says, “Failure is just practice for success.” Though I find such features of this extension a bit corny and unhelpful, I continued to use it in order to take advantage of its to-do list feature. Since most of my work is done on the computer anyway, having a to-do list on the bottom right corner of the screen that I could quickly add and remove from was incredibly convenient.

I soon found, however, that checking off an item from the to-do list – seeing that blue line cross off the item that was daunting me – became one of the main things I looked forward to in a day. It was satisfying to know that I had completed a task, refreshing to see one less thing to worry about. Yet, my to-do list would never actually shrink in size. The thing about college is that there is always something you can be doing. Even if you finish your homework for the night – the week, even – you have the syllabus to get ahead on work or studying. If you aren’t doing work, you could always be going to see that one speaker on campus or emailing that one professor back or catching up with that one friend you’ve been meaning to reconnect with for a while. It’s no question why whenever I crossed something off the list I remembered something I should add.

Since coming to college, perhaps since using the to-do list feature on my laptop, I’ve developed this habit of constantly ticking through a list of things to do in my head. As I’m eating lunch, I’m thinking about the p-set that I plan to do afterwards, and then I’m thinking about the midterm that’s on the day after the p-set is due, and I go on and on until I stress myself out about the paper that’s due in five weeks, even though the only task I have at hand at the moment is to finish enjoying my meal with a friend. This, I admit, is in fact a “me problem” – a habit that I need to fix. However, I do think that my to-do list, which was visible every time I opened my laptop, played a huge factor in feeding this habit. The fact that my list would only get longer, no matter how many things I crossed off, haunted me.

This quarter, I’ve made a resolution to live more in the moment — not to plan ahead so much. While this may or may not produce the best effects in the long run, my goal is to try doing things that’ll make me happy on a day-to-day basis, even a moment to moment basis. In order to do this, I need to stop thinking of my impending list of responsibilities every moment of the day. My first step towards this goal was to get rid of my to-do list, the visual representation of my impending responsibilities.

Part of me hopes I won’t forget about things that I need to get done, now that I don’t have a to-do list. But, strangely, another part of me hopes I will forget, because that would mean I was living in the moment, enjoying life without being a slave to my responsibilities. As weird as it sounds, it would be an accomplishment of mine to think “Oh shoot, I forgot to do that,” and an even bigger accomplishment to follow that with, “Oh well, life goes on.” Because it does.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu. 

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Profound things my professors said this week https://stanforddaily.com/2018/04/10/profound-things-my-professors-said-this-week/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/04/10/profound-things-my-professors-said-this-week/#respond Tue, 10 Apr 2018 08:00:47 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1138960 With the start of a brand new quarter came brand new classes, and thus, brand new professors. During Week 1, with the sun shining and the “spring quarter mood” at full intensity, I was once again reminded of how blessed I am to be here at Stanford. And one of the greatest aspects of being […]

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With the start of a brand new quarter came brand new classes, and thus, brand new professors. During Week 1, with the sun shining and the “spring quarter mood” at full intensity, I was once again reminded of how blessed I am to be here at Stanford. And one of the greatest aspects of being at an institution like Stanford is the opportunity to learn under world-class professors. So, without further ado, here are some of the many thoughtful things each of my professors said this week.

“The fact that I can pull a computer out of my pocket and ask how far it is between two cities anywhere in the world is amazing.” — Chris Gregg, professor of computer science

This quote served as a reminder that we often take technology for granted nowadays. As a demonstration of what computer science is capable of, Professor Gregg took his iPhone out of his pocket and asked Siri the distance between two cities, to which Siri responded almost immediately with the correct answer. With the abundance of advanced technology in the world today, this is nothing special at first glance. I mean, I can ask a device named “Alexa” to turn on the lamps in my dorm room, and there are self-driving cars all over Mountain View.

However, taking computer science classes has allowed me to appreciate technology even more. The amount of thought and effort that must have gone into programming technology as complicated as Siri is unbelievable and incredibly admirable. Professor Gregg highlighted the impressive nature of things that we take for granted, as well as encouraged us, saying that learning computer science can be used to make such impressive things into reality.

“People are natural causality detectors.” — Jamil Zaki, professor of psychology

In PSYCH 1, we have been learning about the scientific method and how to analyze data to draw conclusions. One of the main points we have learned is the well-known idea that “correlation does not equal causation.” For example, the number of shark attacks that occur and the amount of ice cream people consume have a positive correlation. However, that does not mean that shark attacks cause people to eat ice cream, nor does it mean people eating ice cream causes shark attacks. The correlation can be accounted for by the fact that both occur more often during the summer time.

A psychologist’s job, therefore, is not finished once a correlation has been discovered. They must draw conclusions from it, often to try to answer the question “Why?” This got me thinking. One of the most common things a toddler says is “Why?” At Stanford, students are encouraged to nurture their intellectual vitality, which often consists of trying to answer the big question of “Why?” in various aspects of life. However, Professor Zaki’s quote made me realize that this desire to find the cause — the answer to the question “Why?” — is not simply a trait that people with a certain curiosity, a certain intellectual vitality possess. It is inherent in all people. In fact, it is part of what makes us human.

“In modernism, the real truth is in the moment.” — Alice Staveley, professor of English

Modernists revolutionized writing in the twentieth century. This week in class, I learned that one of these modernist writers, Virginia Woolf, criticized “materialistic writing” for being structured — for having a set beginning, middle and end. Modernist writing, instead, aims to portray real life, the truth, by getting rid of all conventions or rules of writing that “sells.” It does not necessarily have the stereotypical plot, per say — the girl doesn’t always get the guy, and the hero doesn’t always save the day. Professor Staveley highlighted the emphasis of the moment in modernist writing. She exemplified how in modernism, each moment is magnified and explored thoroughly before moving on to the next thought, the next sentence.

This, I think, is an idea that I can apply to my day to day life, not only to my analysis of modernist works. Just as the modernist works ponder and take time on a single moment, I hope to ponder and take time on single moments of my days here at Stanford, while everything tends to be hurried and aimed at getting onto the next “plot point” of our lives. I believe that some of my best memories, some of the greatest truths, will be discovered in such precious moments.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Sitting alone in the dining hall https://stanforddaily.com/2018/04/03/sitting-alone-in-the-dining-hall/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/04/03/sitting-alone-in-the-dining-hall/#respond Tue, 03 Apr 2018 08:00:08 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1138599 I sit alone in the dining hall from time to time. Before you begin to pity me, let me rephrase that sentence. I choose to sit alone in the dining hall from time to time. My dorm, West Lag, has a long rectangular table that we have “claimed” in Lakeside Dining. I’m thankful for this […]

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I sit alone in the dining hall from time to time. Before you begin to pity me, let me rephrase that sentence. I choose to sit alone in the dining hall from time to time.

My dorm, West Lag, has a long rectangular table that we have “claimed” in Lakeside Dining. I’m thankful for this table, as it is a place where I can see a friendly face at almost all hours that the dining hall is open. Our RAs designated this table for us on the first night of college, so that we could avoid that awkward feeling of looking around an area wondering “Where should I sit?” that we have all experienced at one point in our lives. It’s a physical place in the dining hall that I know I’m always welcome, a place where I can always expect to see someone I know — so much so that when someone not from West Lag sits there I’m thrown off.

Despite the fact that I always have the option to share a meal with a friend, I occasionally choose to sit at a separate table in another section of the dining hall. Sometimes, this is because I use the time to call one of my friends from high school to catch up. But other times, I sit alone without a specific reason — I’m just not in the mood to sit with a friend, no matter how much I love them, though that may sound weird. I just want to enjoy a meal alone, have my own space in a place like college where we eat, learn, and live with others, nearly 24/7.

Sitting alone in the dining hall has allowed me to reflect on a few things. I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel self-conscious sitting alone. However, I’m not afraid of being alone: I’m afraid of looking alone, which is a huge difference. While I’m not self-conscious of sitting alone, I’m self-conscious of other people looking at me and thinking, “Aw, poor girl, she’s sitting alone.” I’m afraid of pity, in essence.

I’ve always thought of pity as a negative thing. It often separates individuals, as it creates an invisible line that divides the person that is pitying and the person that is being pitied. Someone sitting alone in a dining hall is a situation that inevitably evokes pity. As I am a wheelchair user, I imagine the sight of me sitting alone evokes even more pity — which is a whole other topic to discuss. Thus, when a stranger came up to me and asked if they could join me for the meal, my inner thoughts immediately became defensive. I understood that they were being incredibly kind and even brave by offering to sit with me. But I disliked the fact that they must have pitied me — did they not even consider the fact that I may have sat alone by choice?

Still, I accepted their offer to sit with me. We enjoyed a nice conversation on things ranging from the chicken we were currently feasting on to energy sustainability. As our conversation progressed, my view on pity changed. I’d been selfish — being frustrated when someone was merely performing an act of kindness. I still don’t think that pity is necessarily a positive attribute that humans have — however, I think pity is an inevitable attribute that humans have. And pity can lead to empathy, which links people instead of dividing them. Whether or not pity itself is a good thing or a bad thing, it is what allowed me to get to know a stranger that I probably would’ve never spoken to before. And that’s not a bad thing.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu. 

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Having your writing workshopped https://stanforddaily.com/2018/03/05/having-your-writing-workshopped/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/03/05/having-your-writing-workshopped/#respond Mon, 05 Mar 2018 09:00:46 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1137691 This quarter, I’m in a Special Topics creative writing seminar called War & Writing. The class was intended to bridge the gap between veterans and non-veterans through the art of storytelling. It is a 16-person seminar comprised of eight veterans and eight non-veterans. It has been the most rewarding class that I’ve taken at Stanford […]

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This quarter, I’m in a Special Topics creative writing seminar called War & Writing. The class was intended to bridge the gap between veterans and non-veterans through the art of storytelling. It is a 16-person seminar comprised of eight veterans and eight non-veterans. It has been the most rewarding class that I’ve taken at Stanford so far. We’ve learned about trauma narratives, discussed why people tell stories and expressed what we expect from a story. Most importantly, we’ve been attempting to tackle the heavy question: Who gets to write a war story?

Is it ethically correct for me – a Stanford student who grew up in a nice suburb of Chicago, a person who has experienced no hardship even close to going through, let alone fighting in, a war – to write a fictional story on the topic of war? At first, I thought no – absolutely not. Who am I to even pretend to know and write about what goes on in a war? Taking this class, however, has allowed me to realize that the answer to this question is not black and white. If fiction writers only had the right to write about things that they had experienced first-hand, there may be no stories in the world at all. It is the duty of a fiction writer to imagine things, to create a world for readers to visit, to move readers and make them think. My professor has been teaching us that the genre of fiction allows writers to write truth without being limited to fact. Okay, so it’s okay for me to write about things outside my realm of experience. But how far does this extend? I still felt a little weird about writing a war story, and I think the question about who gets to write a story doesn’t have an explicit answer.

Nevertheless, part of the course is to write a war story, so I did. And this week, I had it workshopped. Sharing a piece of writing with others and having them read, analyze and critique it is an extremely vulnerable task in and of itself. Sharing a war story and having it read, analyzed and critiqued by veterans therefore was a bit nerve-wracking, to say the least.

I entered the workshop with sweaty palms, ready to get flamed by my classmates with things like “That’s not realistic at all” or “How dare you write that?” I don’t know why I had such expectations – my classmates are all incredibly kind and thoughtful individuals, and such harsh criticisms hadn’t occurred in any of the workshops that came before me. Despite my initial nervousness, I left the workshop with a smile on my face, feeling encouraged.

The workshop begins with people sharing positive feedback, things they thought worked well in the story. Then, they started discussing questions that arose while reading or things they would’ve liked to see more of. I’m not sure if this is how it works in all creative writing workshops here, but for this class, the author of the piece being workshopped does not say a word. You sit there and listen to the class discuss your work, almost like how a book club runs. However, the encouragement I felt after participating in the workshop didn’t come from the compliments I received, though they were incredibly supportive. Instead, the encouragement came from the mere fact that people were taking my writing seriously.

As I sat in the workshop, my classmates talked about my character, John, as if he was a real person. They talked about how they related to how John felt when his grandfather smiled at him, as if somewhere, sometime in real life, John’s grandfather had really smiled at him, and John had really felt proud. My classmates didn’t act as if this was just a silly story for a writing class; they treated it as if it was an important piece worth revising to make a better impact. I can’t pinpoint what it is, but hearing other people discuss my work made it feel real, and that was the biggest compliment I could’ve received.

I would encourage everyone to take a creative writing workshop at some point in their time here at Stanford, no matter what your interest of study is. I guarantee that even if you don’t leave the class feeling like a great writer, you will leave feeling like a real writer – a person whose thoughts matter and are important – and that, to me, is even more valuable.

I can’t wait to get revising.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu. 

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Why do we rush around so much? https://stanforddaily.com/2018/03/01/why-do-we-rush-around-so-much/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/03/01/why-do-we-rush-around-so-much/#respond Fri, 02 Mar 2018 00:12:18 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1137542 “Can you come in and pack me up please?” Sent six minutes ago. Having a physical disability, I rely on personal care attendants (PCAs) to assist me with all physical aspects of daily living, including getting set up before class and packed up after. On Wednesdays, I have two classes back to back with ten […]

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“Can you come in and pack me up please?” Sent six minutes ago.

Having a physical disability, I rely on personal care attendants (PCAs) to assist me with all physical aspects of daily living, including getting set up before class and packed up after. On Wednesdays, I have two classes back to back with ten minutes in-between. Even for students who bike or skateboard, having only ten minutes between classes results in a rushed transition, faster pedaling. Only able to go as fast as my electric wheelchair can, I feel an increased pressure on Wednesdays between 2:20 and 2:30 p.m., when I have to get from the engineering quad to the opposite corner in Main Quad. I make sure to text my PCA, who waits outside my lecture hall during class, at precisely 2:18 p.m., asking her to come in and pack me up so that I can start zooming to my next class at exactly 2:20.

Last Wednesday, I glanced nervously back and forth between my phone screen and the door in the back of the lecture hall. I’d sent the message at 2:18, as usual. It was 2:20, and my PCA still wasn’t here, helping me take my glasses off and putting my laptop away. Soon, the class ended, and my fellow classmates began shuffling out of the classroom. It was 2:24 p.m., and I was about twelve minutes away from my 2:30 discussion section. I began to panic. I sent a passive-aggressive “Hello?” to my PCA, and when she finally came through the doors a minute later, I couldn’t help but feel a little frustrated. The class I had to get to only had 15 people, which made it much more awkward to come in late. My PCA apologized and said that the first message came through at the same time as the second. I definitely understood – that happened to me all the time.

“No worries at all! It’s not a big deal,” I said, even though I thought it was a big deal. Now, looking back, I’m frustrated at myself for being frustrated at the situation, because it really isn’t a big deal.

A friend and I recently talked about how it’s weird that we tend to measure distance in minutes. A typical response to “how far away is it?” is “about 20 minutes.” I find it much easier to gauge distance in time, rather than in miles. I think this mentality, this tendency, is exemplary of the inherent pressures we feel to not only get places, but to get places quickly – physical places, yes, but also to certain statuses/positions in society.

Though I’m definitely not the type of person who shows up 30 minutes early to all of their appointments, I hate being late. I hate being behind. I hate being off my planned schedule. That Wednesday, I zoomed as fast as my wheelchair would let me, not slowing down when there was a bump in the road. I zoomed past the beautiful palm trees in the area connecting the engineering quad and Main Quad. I zoomed past the majestic arches of Main Quad and paintings on Memorial Church. And while I usually try to stop so as to not photobomb tourists’ photos, I zoomed straight through a family’s photo by the Rodin sculptures in Main Quad.

But as I was zooming, I realized how silly I was being. Why was I in such a hurry? Why did I rush around so much? I rush not only when I am late to something, but even in my day to day life: I rush to eat dinner so that I can finish my reading, I rush to finish my reading so that I can move on to the p-set, I rush to finish my p-set so that I can get to bed, and then I wake up and I rush to get ready so that I can get to class and the cycle just starts all over again. I think part of me thinks that rushing to do things will eventually get me to a day when I won’t have to rush – to worry about doing anything. However, this is simply untrue – there’s always going to be something you can be doing, there’s always going to be a “next step” in your day and in your life. We should enjoy the now, instead of worrying about getting to the next.

While I’m not saying it’s okay to be late to everything, I do think, as do many Stanford students and human beings in general, that I need to work on slowing down and not taking myself so seriously. So what if I miss out on six minutes of my discussion section? I could gain six minutes of admiring the architecture of the school, of having some time alone to think and reflect, of soaking in the nice California weather, of just breathing.

Take time for yourself. Let the tourists take their picture. Stop to talk with someone you haven’t seen in a while. Dare I say it, be late. It really isn’t a big deal. Slow down and don’t worry – your next step will always be there, waiting.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Things that go through your head during office hours https://stanforddaily.com/2018/02/20/things-that-go-through-your-head-during-office-hours/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/02/20/things-that-go-through-your-head-during-office-hours/#respond Tue, 20 Feb 2018 09:00:27 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1136980 On my very first day of school at Stanford, my professors for my Thinking Matters class took us on a class field trip. We met in our regular classroom, went over the syllabus and expectations for the class, and then our professors told us to follow them — we were going to go on a […]

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On my very first day of school at Stanford, my professors for my Thinking Matters class took us on a class field trip. We met in our regular classroom, went over the syllabus and expectations for the class, and then our professors told us to follow them — we were going to go on a mini field trip. They took us to the building where their offices are and had us line up. We entered their offices one by one and introduced ourselves. Our professors had us do this, they said, because they wanted to prove to us that they were serious about wanting to get to know us individually, despite the fact that this was a 100-person lecture class. “One way to get to know us is through office hours,” they said. “Now, you know exactly where our offices are.” This was a pretty great first impression I had of Stanford professors.

With this idea ingrained in me, I decided early on that I wanted to take advantage of office hours, whether that was to get extra help in the class or just to develop a personal relationship with the people who were teaching me. However, I think there is an underlying pressure when it comes to attending office hours, especially those of a well-known professor. There’s the common, though perhaps improper understanding that going to office hours is your chance to ask the right questions, say the right things and establish the right relationship (to get that letter of recommendation you might need in the future, am I right?)

With such beliefs in my head, I found myself – and sometimes still do find myself – a bit nervous to go to office hours, unnecessarily so. Here are some thoughts that go through my head before, during and after office hours.

Do I have the right questions prepared?

Professors are busy human beings. I am always afraid of wasting their time, so I try to go to office hours knowing exactly what I want to ask or talk to them about. However, I have sometimes found that our conversation goes off on a tangent, and we end up talking about something that we are both passionate about, related to the class, which leads me to think …

Dang, this person is smart 

As I go through my day-to-day routine, sometimes I forget that I’m at one of the most well-renowned universities in the whole world. Class just feels like class, homework just feels like homework. Whenever I go to office hours and converse one-on-one with a professor, however, I am immediately reminded: “Wow, I’m really lucky to be here – this person right in front of me is a leading expert/scholar in their field, and I get to learn from them, speak with them, and geek out over stuff with them.”

… but this person is also just that – a person.

Yes, I am in complete awe of many of our professors. I am in awe of what they’ve accomplished, I am in awe of their passion for their subject area and I am in awe of their ability and enthusiasm in teaching their students. Yet at the same time, being in a small office with them, talking to them about whatever it is we’re talking about, I am also reminded that they are just another human being. They are here, they are accessible to us, but more than that, they are excited to get to know us —  another human being passionate about what they’re passionate about. They’re just people — amazing people, for sure — but people. Recognizing this rids me of my nerves, and instead I think …

All right, it’s so cool to be here.

I always leave office hours thinking it was silly for me to ever be nervous about going. It’s not your chance to ask the right questions; it’s your opportunity to discuss something you’re curious or passionate about. It’s not the place you must say the right things; it’s a place you can say the wrong things and learn from the expert in front of you. It’s not about the letter of recommendation, and it’s not about creating the right relationship with the professor; it’s about creating a relationship with your professor — one that will enhance your thoughts and ideas, instead of your prospects of getting a good job.

I know you’ve heard this a million times, but really, go to office hours. You’ll learn a thing or two.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Curing the “winter quarter blues” with thankfulness https://stanforddaily.com/2018/02/12/curing-the-winter-quarter-blues-with-thankfulness/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/02/12/curing-the-winter-quarter-blues-with-thankfulness/#respond Mon, 12 Feb 2018 09:00:30 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1136543 “Sometimes I have to remind myself that Palm Drive is beautiful,” my friend said to me the other day, when we were talking about the infamous “winter quarter blues.” This, in one sentence, encapsulated the mood that I had been stuck in for the past few weeks. This, in one sentence, also holds the cure […]

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“Sometimes I have to remind myself that Palm Drive is beautiful,” my friend said to me the other day, when we were talking about the infamous “winter quarter blues.” This, in one sentence, encapsulated the mood that I had been stuck in for the past few weeks. This, in one sentence, also holds the cure to the “winter quarter blues” that I think many of us have been feeling lately.

The “winter quarter blues” refer to the dreariness that many Stanford students feel during winter quarter. It is a dreariness that results from a combination of things — the excitement of a new school year has died down; many of us went home over winter break (which may have served as a reminder of the comfort of family and deliciousness of home-cooked meals that we lack at school); there’s often more schoolwork to do with the trend of taking more units winter quarter; and the weather is usually cold and rainy (Okay, that hasn’t really been the case this year, but still).

As an eager, enthusiastic (perhaps naive) freshman in the fall, I could not imagine feeling dreary on campus – I was immensely blessed to have gotten into Stanford, and I was surrounded by beautiful palm trees and even more beautiful people. Each archway of Main Quad, each square inch of Green Library seemed special to me, and I could never imagine not being thankful to be here.

What I discovered, however, is how quickly human beings get used to their surroundings. Already, by winter quarter of freshman year, Stanford has become my norm — I’ve become used to it, spoiled by it. I grumbled all day on the few rainy days we had, complaining about the inconvenience of going to section — was I really learning anything in section anyway? I cried because I missed my family and high school friends. Day after day, I went past the beautiful Spanish-style architecture of my dorm complex, the massive mural painted on Memorial Church and the impressive archways of Main Quad, and I felt absolutely nothing.

Why wasn’t I giddy with excitement anymore? Why wasn’t I overfilled with thankfulness to be here? I was literally at one of the greatest academic institutions in the world, surrounded by some of the greatest friends and mentors in the world. Why wasn’t I completely overjoyed at all times?

After wallowing in guilt for not being super excited to be here, I snapped myself out of it. First of all, it was just a fact: I’d become used to and spoiled by Stanford, and feeling sad or guilty about it wouldn’t change anything. And second, no one should ever feel guilty for being sad, or for being happy, for that matter.

Instead, I have been practicing gratitude. And yes, it is something you need to practice, like soccer or the violin. When I see a tourist on campus, I remind myself that I go to a school that is literally a tourist destination, and I practice gratitude. When I stay up late to work on an assignment that has taken me an insane number of hours, I remind myself that I’m taking a class that I find interesting and important enough to devote an insane number of hours to, and I practice gratitude. When I’m going down Palm Drive with my friends to get dinner on University Ave, I remind myself that it’s beautiful, and I am grateful.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

           

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Scheduling time to relax https://stanforddaily.com/2018/02/06/scheduling-time-to-relax/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/02/06/scheduling-time-to-relax/#respond Tue, 06 Feb 2018 09:00:55 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1136167 Amidst the hustle and bustle of going from one extracurricular to another, needing to finish that one p-set but also read several chapters of a book by the next day, stopping by office hours before eating quickly so that you can see cool guest speaker on campus today, Stanford is a place where it is […]

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Scheduling time to relax
Courtesy of Unsplash.

Amidst the hustle and bustle of going from one extracurricular to another, needing to finish that one p-set but also read several chapters of a book by the next day, stopping by office hours before eating quickly so that you can see cool guest speaker on campus today, Stanford is a place where it is hard to relax, to say the least. Even when you have free time, there is always something you could be doing — working on that summer internship application, studying for the upcoming midterm or getting ahead on homework.

It did not take me long to realize how, at least during the week, it is hard to find time to just relax with your friends. Besides the people you live with, the people you have extracurricular activities or group projects with and the people who eat meals at relatively similar times as you, it’s difficult to just hang out and de-stress.

Upon reflecting on this with some friends, I’ve started scheduling in time to just relax with them each week. Starting in winter quarter, I’ve gotten a weekly lunch with a friend on Tuesdays and a weekly lunch with another friend on Thursdays.  I’ve also set aside an hour on Thursdays to find a nice spot and read with another friend. And we decided the book we read during that time must be one that we’re reading for fun, not for a class. I’ve put these events on my calendar and made a promise to myself that I won’t take them lightly — they are blocked off times of my week where I’m committed to spending time with my friends.

They are times I’ve declared that I’m unavailable — unavailable to meet for a group project, unavailable to go to office hours, unavailable to catch up on homework — though I’m sure my friends would be more than happy to be flexible if anything did come up. Just as I’m required to go to discussion section every week, I’m requiring myself to relax and spend quality time with good friends each week at these times. Not that hanging out with my friends is like going to discussion section, by any means.

Although these endeavors take up a total of only three hours of my week, they are incredibly rewarding. In a sense, they are the most rewarding three hours of my week. They are three hours each week that I’m guaranteed to let my guard down, have a friend to talk with and listen to and de-stress amidst the chaos that is Stanford. They are three hours each week when I’m connecting with another human being, one-on-one, and developing meaningful friendships. Such things I could not learn or get in any class or discussion section, no matter how great the class or brilliant the professor. Yes, it is sad that as the busy Stanford students we are, this doesn’t happen more naturally. However, I’ve found there are great benefits to having “scheduled time” to relax.

At first, I’ll admit I felt a little guilty. I was chilling with a friend when I could’ve been spending that time getting my homework done. I was starting a book that I’d picked up for fun instead of finishing the one that I’d have a reading quiz on the next day. But once it became a recurring, scheduled part of my week — just like each lecture or club meeting — the guilt faded. Now I know that relaxing doesn’t need to be a privilege for when I finish all my homework or submit that one internship application. It’s exactly what I needed to be doing, right then and there.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Why I take a diverse course load https://stanforddaily.com/2018/01/29/why-i-take-a-diverse-course-load/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/01/29/why-i-take-a-diverse-course-load/#respond Mon, 29 Jan 2018 09:00:38 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1135673 “What do you want to major in?” This is one of the top three questions you’ll get asked when someone finds out you’re a freshman in college. There are the students who are completely set on what they want to study. There are those who have absolutely no idea. And then there are those like […]

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“What do you want to major in?” This is one of the top three questions you’ll get asked when someone finds out you’re a freshman in college. There are the students who are completely set on what they want to study. There are those who have absolutely no idea. And then there are those like me, who are pretty sure, but not 100 percent locked in. All three statuses are completely valid. That’s why we’re here — to learn about who we are and what we love, so that one day, maybe, we will be sure.

Personally, I came to Stanford leaning towards being an English major, and this hasn’t changed (yet). I took mostly English courses fall quarter, and this confirmed my love of words and my desire to devote my time to studying their magic. Often surrounded by STEM students, I prided myself on being one of the seemingly rare humanities students here. Frankly, I even found myself internally criticizing some STEM students for not giving the humanities a chance, when, as a matter of fact, I wasn’t giving STEM a chance.

One of the reasons I love the quarter system is that it allows students to explore many different subjects. While I love English, I have an infinity of other interests, as well as many paths I could decide to take in terms of deciding my major and my career. Stanford is the perfect place to explore those interests and those paths by taking new classes every ten weeks. This quarter, I decided to branch out of my comfort zone and take classes in Computer Science and Public Policy, in addition to Creative Writing.

I’m loving it. This may sound crazy, but I feel like I can literally sense the different sides of my brain working throughout the week. On an average day, I take a break from coding a program that solves the Pythagorean Theorem (for any CS majors — I know, it’s just 106A — but I think it’s so cool and so hard) by writing a war poem, before reading about whether or not mandate elections actually exist. This diverse nature of my courses has been really rewarding, as well as eye-opening.

By taking a variety of classes, I’ve learned that I do indeed love the task of writing more than any other type of homework I have. But I’ve also learned the satisfaction of debugging a code; yes, I admit it — I like CS and the logical thinking that comes with it (so far). And I’ve learned that while I find the history and trends of policy-making fascinating, I don’t think becoming a policy-maker myself would be a good fit. In essence, I’m accomplishing the goal of learning about myself, the world around me and my place in the world around me.

This quarter, I’m exercising my brain. I’m thinking: “Yeah, I really love English.” But I’m also thinking: “Maybe I should minor in CS. Nah. Well, maybe.” I’m deciding that law school is probably not for me. I’m wanting to try even more subjects next quarter. I’m exploring. I’m discovering what I like and don’t like. All in all, I’m getting closer to the unattainable state of “being sure.”

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Disneyland ups and downs https://stanforddaily.com/2018/01/23/disneyland-ups-and-downs/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/01/23/disneyland-ups-and-downs/#respond Tue, 23 Jan 2018 09:00:35 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1135415 Dorm trip is one of the most iconic Stanford traditions that freshmen look forward to. Often, dorms take a “ski trip” or “snow trip” to Lake Tahoe, but my dorm went in the direct opposite direction from snow, venturing down to sunny SoCal to visit Disneyland. Though some of my dorm-mates were disappointed that they […]

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Dorm trip is one of the most iconic Stanford traditions that freshmen look forward to. Often, dorms take a “ski trip” or “snow trip” to Lake Tahoe, but my dorm went in the direct opposite direction from snow, venturing down to sunny SoCal to visit Disneyland. Though some of my dorm-mates were disappointed that they wouldn’t be hitting the slopes like most other dorms, many of us, including myself, were hyped about our destination. Overall, it was a fantastic, fun-filled time. However, there were a lot of ups and downs on the trip, and I’m not just talking about the dips from the roller-coaster rides.

Here are some of the ups and downs from our trip:

Up: The weather was picture perfect: 80 degrees and sunny during the day, getting into the 60s at night. We didn’t have to worry about weather interfering with our activities during the day or not having snow to ski on.

Down: We left campus on a bus at midnight and drove for eight hours, arriving at Disneyland in the morning. We hung out all day and then got back on the bus at 10 p.m. to drive straight back to campus. You could say it was a bit tiring.

Up: It was a great dorm bonding experience. Though I felt close to my dorm before, I was definitely closer to some people than others. There is a distinct difference between someone who is a dormmate and someone who is a close friend. The Disney trip, however, was an opportunity in which some of my dormmates became my great friends.

Down: Not a lot of people from the dorm actually went on the trip. Many stayed back, especially the people from California, as they had already been to Disney once, if not multiple times.

Beyond this, the trip to Disneyland revealed some deeper ups and downs. Before the trip, our dorm attended a diversity event on campus that got us discussing representation of race and other human differences in media. This was a required event for those of us who were going on the Disney trip, as it was meant to encourage us to keep our intellectual vitality running on the trip by keeping our eyes open for things that Disney does well to promote diversity and things that could be improved. I’ll be honest — I grumbled to myself a little before and after the event. Why couldn’t we just enjoy the trip and not try to make it an educational experience? In retrospect, however, I did get a lot more out of the trip as I began noticing assets and drawbacks of Disney in terms of advocating for diversity.

Up: Especially in recent years, Disney has created more stories where the princess, prince or main character is a person of color. “Moana” and “The Princess and the Frog” are examples of such movies, as well as the older animations “Mulan” and “Pocahontas.”

Down: Many of these movies with protagonists of color are full of stereotypes and contain problematic implications. This extends to the products and sites extended from these movies. The Tiki Room in Disneyland, for example, portrayed a native Hawaiian as someone who could clearly not speak English well.

Up: Disney is often referred to as “The Happiest Place on Earth.” While I think that’s an overstatement, the amusement park does do a great job at one thing: making everyone feel welcome. Even the guards at the security checkpoint were friendly and welcoming, making it impossible not to smile as you walked in. It is a place full of families, friends and individuals who are making memories and having a blast no matter where they came from.

Down: As a wheelchair user, this is a downfall that especially stuck out to me — the poor-quality accommodations for individuals with disabilities. The Disneyland map does a fantastic job of indicating which attractions are wheelchair-accessible and which are not. However, I found that many of the “accessible” attractions were not nearly as accessible as their label might claim. For example, a walkthrough of the Sleeping Beauty Castle was marked as wheelchair-friendly, so I went, only to find that Disney’s definition of wheelchair-friendly meant having a small accessible room next to the castle with a video tour of the attraction playing.

All this to say, my dorm trip to Disneyland was an enjoyable — and yes, educational — time that I appreciated greatly. And to Disney — although I am eternally thankful for the beautiful stories you create and the happiness you instill in millions of people’s lives, you’ve got a long way to go, just like the rest of us.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu. 

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Why missing high school is okay https://stanforddaily.com/2018/01/18/why-missing-high-school-is-okay/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/01/18/why-missing-high-school-is-okay/#respond Thu, 18 Jan 2018 12:00:22 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1135220 College is extremely hyped up in today’s society. We know it as the “best four years of your life,” while high school is known as a time full of drama, dumb mistakes, standardized tests and mean cheerleaders. Lots of people I’ve met have said they hated high school, though not quite as much as they hated […]

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College is extremely hyped up in today’s society. We know it as the “best four years of your life,” while high school is known as a time full of drama, dumb mistakes, standardized tests and mean cheerleaders. Lots of people I’ve met have said they hated high school, though not quite as much as they hated middle school. Then, there’s the classic joke: “you peaked in high school,” which is often intended to be an insult rather than a compliment.

In all honesty, I loved high school. I’m blessed that I had the best group of friends in the world, avoided a lot of the drama, did relatively well academically and didn’t encounter any mean cheerleaders. Many people at Stanford had a similar high school experience – the fact that we are here proves that we must have not only survived, but thrived in high school, in one way or another. Don’t get me wrong, the senioritis was real, and I was beyond ready to graduate along with everyone else. But ultimately, while I went into high school thinking it would be horrible based on the movies and stories I’ve heard, I came out thinking it was a fantastic — maybe even the best four years of my life.

So I had really high expectations for college. I didn’t expect it to be perfect, by any means, but I figured if high school was that good, college would be even better.

I don’t mean to say I was disappointed when I got here as a freshman. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I was thrilled to be taking such thought-provoking classes under knowledgeable professors, meeting amazing friends to have both intellectual and absolutely stupid conversations with and having a blast with my newfound independence. People were right – college was great. Yet, for some reason, I found myself missing high school.

At first, I denied it. I didn’t want to be that girl who peaked in high school. But over winter break, I went back to Chicago (where I went to high school) for the first time since college started, and I couldn’t deny it any longer. I missed high school. A lot. I missed my high school friends, the high school hang-out spots and the overall familiarity of the place. Familiar, I’ve realized, is one thing that the first quarter of college definitely isn’t.

For a while, I kept trying to pinpoint what made me miss high school. It wasn’t that I hadn’t made good friends at college, because I have. It wasn’t that I thought the academics or extracurricular activities were better in high school, because they weren’t. It wasn’t even that I wanted to go back to high school, because I was ready for change and growth. In fact, the thought of going back there for another year actually makes my head want to explode. Towards the end of winter break, I truly was excited to return to campus – to see my friends here and get started with new classes.

So, if everything was going so well in college, why did I miss high school so much? Because high school was a good time.

I’d been overthinking it for all of fall quarter. I missed high school simply because it was a good time, just like I miss being in Key West for vacation, which was also a good time. There was no deeper meaning behind it besides that I enjoyed it; it was memorable.

I read once that you shouldn’t feel bad loving a new friend, because that doesn’t mean you love an old friend less – it just means that you have more love inside of you.

I will no longer feel bad for loving Stanford as much as I do, despite how good high school was to me. It doesn’t mean the love I had for high school is diminished in any way, it just means I have more to love. But on the other hand, I will also no longer feel bad for missing high school, because it doesn’t mean college isn’t amazing. It just means that, for me, high school was amazing enough to miss. Boy, am I thankful for that.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Making the daunting 30-minute trip home for break https://stanforddaily.com/2017/12/06/making-the-daunting-30-minute-trip-home-for-break/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/12/06/making-the-daunting-30-minute-trip-home-for-break/#respond Wed, 06 Dec 2017 09:00:36 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1134373 Week 8 rolled around and I was just as ready to go home for Thanksgiving as the next student swamped with p-sets, projects and papers. Throughout all of Week 8, I heard and asked the same question over and over again: “Are you going home for break?” The usual response was either, “Yeah, I can’t wait!” […]

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Week 8 rolled around and I was just as ready to go home for Thanksgiving as the next student swamped with p-sets, projects and papers. Throughout all of Week 8, I heard and asked the same question over and over again: “Are you going home for break?”

The usual response was either, “Yeah, I can’t wait!” or “Nah, I live on the East Coast, so it wasn’t worth getting a plane ticket for the short break.”

My answer was the former, as I live a mere 30 minutes away from campus.

I’ve heard differing experiences from my peers who are also local. Some take advantage of the fact that they are so close to home, going back to hang out with their family and high school friends every weekend. Others purposefully avoid going home so that they can get the so-called full college experience of being away for long periods of time; I was closer to the latter. Thus, I was more than stoked to go home for Thanksgiving.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time doing absolutely nothing besides eating and sleeping over the break. When I finally decided to try to get some work done and complained to my mom that I had a 12-page paper to write over break, she offered to drop me off at Green Library while she had a meeting with someone in Palo Alto. That’s when I realized how close I was to school. I declined the offer – no matter how much I love Stanford, for some reason, I didn’t want to be on campus while it was still technically Thanksgiving break.

I know for a fact that some dormmates who stayed on campus had a blast making their own Thanksgiving dinner and going on late-night adventures around campus. Some friends who are local even stayed on campus despite the fact that it would have been a short car ride – or even a bike ride – home. However, for me, a true break meant being physically off campus for a bit, away from the hustle and bustle that Stanford is, no matter how much of a wonderful hustle and bustle it can be. And I know a lot of people felt the same, or wished they could get off campus but simply couldn’t due to how far away their home is.

Thus, no matter how trivial it might be, making the big 30-minute journey home truly did feel like a huge trek. Thanksgiving break was a refreshing time of rest for me. While I joke about living so close to campus – rolling my eyes and saying my parents can come visit me too easily – I consider myself extremely blessed to be able to have my home away from home, only 20 miles away.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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The phenomenon of laptop stickers https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/30/the-phenomenon-of-laptop-stickers/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/30/the-phenomenon-of-laptop-stickers/#respond Thu, 30 Nov 2017 09:00:47 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1133958 The summer before college started, my parents gifted me with a brand-new laptop. I was stoked to have the shiny new piece of technology and all the features that came along with it: the fancy touch bar that allows me to log in by scanning my fingerprint, the crystal-clear Retina screen that displays my Netflix […]

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The summer before college started, my parents gifted me with a brand-new laptop. I was stoked to have the shiny new piece of technology and all the features that came along with it: the fancy touch bar that allows me to log in by scanning my fingerprint, the crystal-clear Retina screen that displays my Netflix shows — I mean, my work — so perfectly, and the increased battery life that lasts a full day. As advertised, the device was truly a “touch of genius.” I treated the laptop as if it were my unborn child, making sure not even the tiniest of scratches was made on the pristine silver back. Besides, I promised my parents I would use it for years and years to come, based on how much of a costly investment it was.

When I arrived on campus, I discovered that many students had received a similar high school graduation gift. If not the same as mine, everyone had a nice laptop of their own. However, to my dismay, the pristine silver, black or gray backs of their own laptops were hardly visible. Rather, the backs were plastered with colorful stickers, barely leaving enough space to be able to tell what color the laptop was originally.

“Why would they do that?” I admittedly thought. “It looks so chaotic and disorganized.”

At first, I thought having laptop stickers was just another quirky “Stanford thing,” like the Band or the Wacky Walk. Before long, I realized I was wrong – this was a nationwide phenomenon amongst college students. My friends at different universities also posted images of their sticker-filled laptop cases on social media. I was determined not to cave to the trend. I would keep my laptop sleek and clean, without any stickers or funky cases.

Sitting in class, however, I found my eyes wandering to the backs of my classmates’ laptops, smiling at the cute, creative stickers that covered them. When studying with my friends, I found myself asking, “Can I look at your laptop stickers?” and listening as they told the unique story of how they got or why they chose each one.

My friend who wants to study bioengineering explained that her favorite sticker was the one of the skeletal formation of serotonin, the chemical compound that transmits happiness in our bodies. Another friend bragged of her huge heart sticker that says “nugs” in the middle–she really does love chicken nuggets. A friend who is Jewish pointed out that she really likes her sticker that says “shalom.” Some other favorite stickers that I’ve seen include one that says “Dunder Mifflin Paper Company,” one that has the “Central Perk” logo and ones that have various Harry Potter references.

Slowly, I’ve come to understand and appreciate the phenomenon that is laptop stickers. By looking at the stickers on the back of someone’s laptop, you truly get a glimpse of the kind of person they are. You can tell what TV shows they like, what passions they have, what kind of aesthetic appeal they have, what they identify with. Each sticker represents a small part of what they love — who they are.

Plastering your laptop with stickers is a fun, creative way to show off your unparalleled identity. Though I have seen the same sticker on more than one laptop, there are no laptop skins that are composed of the exact same combination of multiple stickers. That, I think, is a result of the beautifully unique nature of each individual person.

On “Cyber Monday” earlier this week, I did not find myself shopping for clothes, electronics or books. Instead, this year, I splurged on some laptop stickers.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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A letter to my RAs https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/17/a-letter-to-my-ras/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/17/a-letter-to-my-ras/#respond Fri, 17 Nov 2017 09:00:07 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1133635 Upon getting to campus on move-in day with nervous jitters overwhelming you, the first friendly faces you see are those of your RAs. And by friendly, I mean very friendly. It is an incredibly uplifting feeling when your RAs call you by name and cheer for you as you haul your luggage into your new […]

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Upon getting to campus on move-in day with nervous jitters overwhelming you, the first friendly faces you see are those of your RAs. And by friendly, I mean very friendly.

It is an incredibly uplifting feeling when your RAs call you by name and cheer for you as you haul your luggage into your new dorm as a freshman, not knowing whether or not this place will feel like home. The enthusiastic cheering made me smile. After being greeted by their bright faces and passionate personalities, I proceeded to continue with the move-in process. That’s cool, I thought. They greet everyone by name. And then I moved on — not thinking much more of it.

But what I’ve come to realize is the incredible amount of effort that must have gone into that moment to make each freshman feel special and welcome. The RAs spent hours matching and memorizing names and faces just to create that smile, that momentary feeling of  “Okay, this is going to be all right,” for all the freshmen as they move in.

Since then, my appreciation for my RAs in West Lag and for all those who have the courage to take on the role of an RA has only increased. In the spirit of gratitude, here is a letter to my RAs:

To my fabulous RAs,

I’m going to be honest: Before coming to Stanford, I had a not-so-good expectation for RAs. Not that I thought you wouldn’t be great people, but according to the stereotypical descriptions of college RAs, I thought you were just going to be the people to go to in the dorm if there was some kind of issue, the people that facilitated cringe-worthy icebreakers and the people who would get you in trouble if you were talking too loud in the hall after quiet hours. What I have discovered, however, is that you all are so much more.

I distinctly remember on the first night of college, when I was extremely nervous for what was to come, you rounded us up for our first house meeting and explained that, in short, your role was to help make us feel at home. As soon as you said that, I felt a knot loosen in my stomach, knowing that there were people there whose job it was to make us feel comfortable and at home. But more than your words or your job description, your actions have comforted me and made Stanford my new home.

So I want to thank you. Thank you for always being a friendly face to sit with in the dining halls. Thank you for getting us in the school spirit by leading chants and rolling out with us to events. Thank you for having your doors open for us to come in and chat whenever. Thank you for being there to take care of us after a wild weekend night. Thank you for hosting cute, creative on-calls that remind us that a Friday night doesn’t have to be wild to be fun. Thank you for baking for us, for fixing our Wi-Fi, for explaining football to us, for teaching us how to do laundry, for checking in on us after rough weeks, for creating a tight-knit vibe in our dorm and for being our friends.

I sometimes forget that on top of all of this, you all are students, too, stressing over midterms and grad school applications, going to office hours, participating in clubs and hanging out with your friends from other dorms. This just makes you all the more amazing. Believe me when I say that I admire and look up to you so much while simultaneously considering you my friends. You have gone above and beyond your job description — you have created a family in the dorm. I couldn’t be more thankful.

(Lag) Love,

Angie

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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An ode to soft-serve ice cream https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/07/an-ode-to-soft-serve-ice-cream/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/07/an-ode-to-soft-serve-ice-cream/#respond Tue, 07 Nov 2017 09:00:36 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1132625 Earlier this week, I went into Lakeside Dining at my usual dinner time, around 5:30 pm. A smile began to form at the corners of my lips as I thought in advance about what I was going to have for dessert: vanilla-flavored soft-serve ice cream with a topping of chocolate chips. It was the same […]

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Earlier this week, I went into Lakeside Dining at my usual dinner time, around 5:30 pm. A smile began to form at the corners of my lips as I thought in advance about what I was going to have for dessert: vanilla-flavored soft-serve ice cream with a topping of chocolate chips. It was the same thing I had at every dinner, except for the nights they were out of vanilla and I was forced to settle for chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips.

To my dismay, I found the following sign plastered onto the machine: Soft serve machine is out of order. Sorry for the inconvenience. Lakeside Dining Team.

It’s not a big deal, I told myself, trying to shake it off. I know it’s trivial, but I swear I felt my stomach drop a little bit. Okay, a lot.

Ever since NSO when I saw someone with a soft-serve ice cream cone in my dining hall, I’ve had it almost every day. Until the machine broke this week, I didn’t know how big of a role something as trifling as ice cream could play in my day-to-day life.

At first, having ice cream was strictly for gustatory pleasure. They say to take advantage of all of the opportunities on campus while you can. I say that includes getting soft-serve ice cream. Then, it became more a habit – a daily tradition, even – to get ice cream after dinner.

I’ve always thought it was beneficial to have something to look forward to – not something far-fetched or a long ways away, like Christmas or getting to go home to see your dog. Instead, something small, tangible and easily accessible, like getting into bed after a busy day of writing papers or taking a hot shower after being outside in the cold.

For me, that small thing to look forward to every day is the soft-serve ice cream at Lakeside — with chocolate chips, of course. For some friends in my dorm, it’s having Lucky Charms cereal for dessert, or taking a refreshing walk around Lake Lag, or listening to their favorite song from Mulan once a day. We all need our “thing” that gets us through this crazy world, one day at a time.

I have soft-serve ice cream to thank for being my thing. And as the saying goes, it really is the little things that count.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu. 

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Navigating Stanford in an electric wheelchair https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/02/navigating-stanford-in-an-electric-wheelchair/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/11/02/navigating-stanford-in-an-electric-wheelchair/#respond Thu, 02 Nov 2017 08:00:34 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1132328 The bike lane or the sidewalk – that is the question. Every day, as I’m going from my home in West Lag to Main Quad for classes, I struggle to decide which path to take. Born with a disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), I maneuver the world in an electric wheelchair. Before college, I […]

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The bike lane or the sidewalk – that is the question.

Every day, as I’m going from my home in West Lag to Main Quad for classes, I struggle to decide which path to take. Born with a disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), I maneuver the world in an electric wheelchair.

Before college, I got a brand new, shiny, speedy wheelchair that goes six miles per hour. This, by the way, is a tremendous upgrade from my previous chair which only went four miles per hour. Four miles per hour required my friends to do an awkward speed walk if I was zooming at full speed, while six miles per hour is the perfect jogging pace for the average person.

When I search for directions on Google Maps, I can anticipate my travel time to be somewhere  between the two estimates listed under the walker icon and the biker icon, respectively. Similarly, I do not quite know where I belong: On the sidewalk or in the bike lane?

I’ve tried both. In the bike lane, I am self-conscious that I’m going too slow, blocking the bikers behind me, and terrified that I’ll get hit by someone in the “Circle of Death.” On the sidewalk, I often find myself stuck behind a group of people walking slowly, or shyly asking a pack of tourists if I can go past them since I need to get to class.

This internal battle to decide where I fit best extends beyond my whereabouts on the street. Yes, I am disabled, but does that mean I should join the disability-related clubs on campus? In one of my lecture halls, there is a seat designated for individuals with disabilities in the front row, but I’d have to strain my neck to look at the board – should I sit there? The short answer, I have discovered, is no.

I think my friends would agree that as much as I am a disabled person, I am a completely “normal” person as well. While I need assistance with everything ranging from brushing my teeth to cutting up my food in the dining hall, I love midnight TAP runs and stress over midterms just as much as the next Stanford student. In this way, I always find myself somewhere “in between” – teetering between the abnormal and the ordinary. I was contemplating this whilst stuck behind some students on the sidewalk one day, when I realized that I’d been having the wrong mindset about this topic.

There is no such thing as an “average Stanford student.” In fact, there is no such thing as a completely normal person in general. Everyone teeters on the edges of normal and abnormal, in their own way. And even those words – normal and abnormal – are subjective to each individual’s experiences; it just happens that my “abnormal” is physically visible.

After realizing this, I’ve enjoyed joining clubs because I want to join them, not because I identify with the club’s particular affiliation. I’ve chosen where to sit in class because I want to sit there, not because it’s the ADA seating option. I’ve gained the confidence to say, “excuse me” with conviction, as I zoom past people on the sidewalk, no longer stuck – knowing that I fully belong in the “in between,” as does everyone.

 

Contact Angie Lee at angielee ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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