Some of my friends are very happy. Some of my friends are drinking in sorrow. I was at a dinner last night where two guys made a bet on President Obama’s approval ratings dropping by 20% in the next five months. For many, hope is in the air with much talks of the new president fixing the economy. If it turns out to be an impossible task, he will probably take the blame.
I posted a simple and short segment I shot and edited for White River Junction CATV on YouTube. You can either go to the “Films” page or go straight to the YouTube link. It is about the sewing workshop at the local senior center.
Some more portraits added in “People.” Go to my Flickr account to see some more of them, including unprocessed originals. Here is the first one, unprocessed.
Much thanks to V and B for being so engaged and patient.
Link: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education by William Deresiewicz.
It’s a very powerful article that criticizes the pursuit of an elite education from an insider’s point of view. Thanks to my friend C for sending me the link.
As somebody who spent much of his teens stressing over courses and extracurriculars only for the sake of “going to a good school”, it’s an article that I really identified with. I briefly rebelled by going to a state school to my father’s shock, but I eventually succumbed to heavy family pressure and transferred to Dartmouth College.
I feel I lost much of myself in that crazy pursuit - my sanity, kindness, a sense of risk-taking, being humble and open toward others going on a different path - and I saw many others losing themselves, too.
“The kid who’s loading up on AP courses junior year or editing three campus publications while double-majoring, the kid whom everyone wants at their college or law school but no one wants in their classroom, the kid who doesn’t have a minute to breathe, let alone think, will soon be running a corporation or an institution or a government.”
That kid was me, and at this very minute, we are churning them out like donuts.
“You can live comfortably in the United States as a schoolteacher, or a community organizer, or a civil rights lawyer, or an artist—that is, by any reasonable definition of comfort. You have to live in an ordinary house instead of an apartment in Manhattan or a mansion in L.A.; you have to drive a Honda instead of a BMW or a Hummer; you have to vacation in Florida instead of Barbados or Paris, but what are such losses when set against the opportunity to do work you believe in, work you’re suited for, work you love, every day of your life?
“Yet it is precisely that opportunity that an elite education takes away. How can I be a schoolteacher—wouldn’t that be a waste of my expensive education? Wouldn’t I be squandering the opportunities my parents worked so hard to provide? What will my friends think? How will I face my classmates at our 20th reunion, when they’re all rich lawyers or important people in New York? And the question that lies behind all these: Isn’t it beneath me? So a whole universe of possibility closes, and you miss your true calling.”
Such insecurities run especially strong among people in these institutions. And if you are one of those not following the straight path (finance, business, science, academia, etc.), get ready to face constant ridicule and backtalking. I heard so many people making fun of English majors that I got sick of it. Why can’t we just leave people alone and respect others for taking on a different path?
The article covers much much more than the few paragraphs I picked out. It’s lengthy, but a worthy read. Anyone who felt something was not quiet right with this mad pursuit might feel a little relief from reading it.
Robert Chang is an artist, musician, and photographer, who happens to be married to a lovely lady: http://www.ethereality.info/. He just became one of my heroes.
I learned about him by accident because one of the portraits he drew was being fasely circulated on YouTube as a haunted drawing by a Japanese teen before she committed suicide. Some people are so depraved.
When not working as an art director for video game companies or producing great digital drawings, he obsessively take photos of his amazing wife, Elena.
It’s kind of scary to realize how many interesting and talented people are out there.
I decided to get a Flickr account because I liked the community. Please visit it at http://www.flickr.com/photos/nathanchung/. I plan to use this home page as a portfolio of my photographs holding a smaller selection, while I will keep expanding the Flickr account.
It turns out that unless you get a “Pro” account, you can only have three “Sets”, which is Flickr’s way of saying albums. That is a huge restriction, so I shelled out a little money to get a “Pro” account. It sounds odd.
Like many other students in the United States, I am blessed with money owed to Uncle Sam. U.S. Department of Education manages my loans under the moniker “Direct Loans Servicing.” The dept. provides online accounts to manage loans, which is at this address https://www.dl.ed.gov/borrower/BorrowerLogin.jsp
I came across a pretty serious coding problem on the Direct Loans website. After logging in, I tried to access my “Electronic Mailbox,” which holds all correspondencse between the dept. and me. There is a link on the sidebar, which says, “Electronic Mailbox.” Easy enough, huh? All I need to do is click on that link to get to my mailbox, right? Wrong. I clicked on it and this is what I got (please look at the pictures at full res by clicking on it):
So that page tells me how to cancel my electronic correspondence, but my mailbox is nowhere to be found. Confused and stressed out, I stared at it for a while. By some brilliant insight, I decided to try clicking on that same link again, and voila, my mailbox showed up:
What is going on here? I have seen some weird websites in my lifetime, but never have I seen a site where clicking on the same link will take you to two different pages. It turns out that to get to my mailbox, I have to click on the “Electronic Mailbox” link once to get to the electronic correspondence cancellation page, then click on the same link again to access my actual mailbox.
It’s better than a coding mistake where my mailbox got wiped, but it is not very reassuing to see that the Dept. of Education cannot hire programmers who can properly program a web interface for such an important function as managing my student loans.
About three weeks ago, I wrote to the department using contact info provided, but I never got a response back. And after having checked it just now, I see that the problem is still not fixed.
Funny stuff. These amusement parks will bring nightmares to some children.
…in the album ‘People.’ One of the most interesting and engaged photo shoots I have done. Thanks to ZM and KM for having such cool, confident, and relaxed personalities.
…in the albums “Animals and Nature”, “Events and Streets”, and “Scenery”.
