I am a customs person and we have just welcomed several new members onto our hall this past week. One of these students is an international student from another dorm and my first years have been very sweet and accommodating to her and I was very touched by their actions. Most international students go by an English name for comfort’s sake and it cuts down on confusion when names are called out during class or when interacting with people. I too go by an English name because my name is constantly mispronounced/misspelled and the mispronunciation of my name is actually another Korean name and so I would never know if someone was calling me or another person and would cause A LOT of confusion. My Korean name is a very big part of my identity and I value what my name stands for because it shows my heritage and the history of my family (most Korean names have unique Chinese roots and belong to certain regions of the country and so lineages can be easily traced). I feel as if we lose a bit of our identity when we decide to go by an English name because most students pick a name that they have read in a book, heard on tv or in a movie or was given to them by friends or strangers. What really touched me was that my first years really made an effort to learn our newcomer’s real name and other international students’ names on our hall. Being called by our real names brings, at least to me, comfort and I feel little bit more ‘whole’. 

Attached find two drafts: for our lesson plan and homework handout.
By Thursday, please send suggested changes.

p.s. now I've removed the drafts, attached the edited versions.

I wanted to post the poem that Le Guin references in case anyone had any interest in reading it! I copied it from this site: http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/coy.htm

To his Coy Mistress

by Andrew Marvell

I was eating with Girl A and Girl B (both from South Asian American backgrounds) at the reception of a recent culture show. A group of people walked by--- two South Asian American girls in arms linked with their boyfriends, surrounded by some of their other friends. Girl A looked up and waved at the girls with boyfriends, and after the group had left the room, Girl A turned to Girl B and said, "I wish I had a white boyfriend!" Girl B nodded in agreement and said, "Mhhm!" In that moment I didn't think to ask Girl A to elaborate on her remark, but looking back on it, I really wonder what she would have said if I asked why. What makes white boyfriends more desirable than any other kind of boyfriend? Her remark surprised me, but I can't really explain why it gave me a weird/funny/unsettling(?) feeling. 

I woke up last Monday to an email saying classes were canceled due to snow and all non-essential staff were asked to stay home. So I was surprised to stroll into the bathroom and see my hall's housekeeper wiping down the sink countertop. I wasn't expecting anyone to be there, but particularly not any college staff. "Wait, don't you get the day off?" I asked. She explained that no – she and the rest of the housekeeping staff are considered essential and have to report into the college regardless of the weather conditions. She then expressed concern that the weather would make it difficult for her to pick up her daughter on time. I wished her luck, and left feeling shocked, helpless, and a little bit guilty. I was surprised the college would require housekeeping staff to report when faculty don't have to – especially because, as 18-22 year olds, I feel we should be pretty capable of restocking toilet paper or keeping our spaces clean, at the very least for a couple of days. I felt helpless because I didn't know what I could do to ease the situation, and wasn't sure what my responsibility was. And I felt guilty because she was forced to risk her own safety to come in to take care of our mess and our spaces.

I am a student representive for a committee of Haverford alumni. Yesterday, I sat in on their meeting and talked to them a little bit about current issues on campus. I brought up how many students were upset about the modification of the no-loan policy and how a lot of students would not have come here without it. The alumni were shocked and somewhat offended. "But everywhere has loans!" "They are not that big!" "Why would you not choose Haverford because of money, Haverford is so special!" Most of the alumni were white and almost all of them currently have high-paying jobs. When they were at Haverford, it was a much less diverse place. Also, college in general cost less then. Currently, Haverford costs $10,000 more per year than the U.S. average yearly income. 

These alumni do not fully understand that for some people, $12,000 in loans after college is a deal breaker. For some people, recieving a few thousand dollars more from one school than another is a deciding factor. Haverford is indeed "special", but not everyone gets to pick the most "special" college, they have to pick the most affordable. 

They also began to complain about how students who recieve grants from Haverford don't give enough to the school after they graduate. Since when did financial aid come with strings attached? Yes, it would be nice if everyone gave back to Haverford, but why should students who needed to be on financial aid be expected to give more than other students?

This isn't directly connected to any class assignment-- but I thought this TED talk was super interesting, considering our recent discussions about interconnectedness and nature/society/world, and considering our artistic approaches to representing the environment. Many of us seemed to photograph the ice at Tinicum, and this is one artists approach!

When reading Chapter 4 of Urban Wildscapes, I kept reflecting on my own childhood and how I was socialized in an environment that mostly restricted play in the industrial ruins. Even when reading about the industrial ruins, I was thinking about the picture I had of what that looked like and how for much of my life, playing or even spending time in that type of space did not seem appealing as they "allow wide scope for activities prohibited or frowned upon in other urban public spaces" (66). However, as I was thinking more deeply about this, I recalled how as children, my brother and I played in a construction site behind our back yard that was composed of many mounds of dirt, some foundations, loose nails--it was certainly an unregulated space and could be charactierized as an industrial ruin. David and I created a make believe town which we invited our other neighbors to play in. We claimed this space as our own and together all of us played games and took on roles and characters of townspeople in this place. While this construction site was not as clean, colorful, regulated, and supervised as the park a few blocks from our house, it did allow us to put more of our own stamp on how we navigated and managed the space, as well as how we were able to use our imaginations. 

I meant to post this the other week when we were talking about fibonacci in nature. Enjoy :)