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| at the end of this semester!
i am taking two more finals and then i am PEACING OUT OF BRYN MAWR! next semester i will be smacking myself over to taiwan february-june :) and i am so psyched. and very lucky...people keep asking me why i want to study abroad again after i already went to beijing this summer. and the answer is...
school sucks and i just want to play!
haha...just...kidding?
morgan is also going to the same program as i am, which makes me even more happy. these past 2.5 years in college, i haven't been able to see him as much as i wanted to. next year will make up for that. i can't wait to roam around the streets of taipei, pigging my way out from night market to night market. the school we're staying at is at the foot of a mountain in muzha, which is in the outskirts of taipei...and very near the biggest zoo in ASIA. yay for animals <3 ahhhhh even writing about this is making me antsy about going. i get to live with 3 taiwanese roommates - which will definitely definitely help my chinese.
i'm going to miss friends and my family so so much. i wish i could take them in my pockets with me to taiwan...but i will just have to settle for bringing them back presents. hopefully wlh HAHAHA | | |
| by a pastor named Soong-Chan Rah about how he relates to Barack Obama. (I Am Barack Obama).
I Am Barack Obama
by Soong-Chan Rah
Whenever John McCain and Sarah Palin would ask: "Who is Barack Obama?" I would cringe. The implication to me was pretty clear. Obama is an outsider. Obama is not your typical American. Obama is not like "us." He’s an Arab. A Muslim. A Terrorist.
I cringed because I am Barack Obama. Or at least my life mirrors his in many ways.
I too am a child of immigrants. My father also immigrated to the U.S. from a nation that begins with K and has five letters. I too have a funny sounding name. I too grew up in a single parent home. I became a Christian in a church that would be considered outside the boundaries of a typical white evangelical church. Obama and I graduated from the same undergraduate college. We hold graduate degrees from the same institution. We have both worked in community organizing. We’re both married to strong, independent women. We are both fathers of two elementary-aged kids. We both live in Chicago.
I am Barack Obama.
So when Obama was portrayed as someone not worthy of trust by the typical American, I took personal offense. I was stunned that my fellow Christians would question the faith of an individual whose testimony of conversion is about as evangelical as you could get. I was deeply wounded at how easily Obama was portrayed as an outsider. It was as if my own country and my fellow believers in Christ were challenging my identity as an American and as a Christian. Even now as I glance through blogs of my fellow Christians, I am stunned at the language and rhetoric that is being used against our president-elect.
But our nation is changing. Young people in droves voted for Obama. Young people understand that we are not only looking at a multiethnic future, but a multiethnic present. Whether I agree with all of his policies or not, a President Obama says that the United States is moving towards a multiethnic reality. Joe the Plumber is not the face of America. The face of America is Barack, Niyasha, Carlos, Ileana, Anis, Makana, Erik, Katiana, Angela, and even Soong-Chan.
Now this atypical American, this non-white evangelical Christian can look to a political leader who embodies the ethnic and cultural diversity of our great nation. Now I can connect more fully with the phrase, "... in order to form a more perfect union." Now I believe that there is a seat at the table for those with funny sounding names and of a different ethnic origin.
I am Barack Obama, and Barack Obama is America. | | |
| until my man obama wins this election!
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| 
Ashley Vermicelli Spinelli
coolest girl on Recess.
i'm actually REALLY EXCITED TO BE HER MWAHAHA
p.s. school sucks big butt
i'm kind of counting down the days until taiwan | | |
| just kidding, i'm not really in the boondocks. i'm in a white upper middle class suburb of philadelphia where people drive very nice cars. very nice. those people are actually the ones you should watch out for...the road rage stricken soccer moms who zoom past you as you cross the street and don't really care if they run over your left toe. it reminds me slightly of staten island.
well...being a junior feels quite different. walking around campus makes me feel old because i see so many freshmen running around at play. they seem so excited - and they should be...until the slump gets to them, haha! la la la. technically i should be writing an anthro paper right now, but i just thought of xanga and how i would like to reminisce about my summer.
here goes: it was awesome. and off the hook - so off the hook that it's nowhere neaar the hook...you can't even see it! even though my program only had 9 people, i made amazing friendships. and yes i actually learned a lot of chinese. it's funny because the 8 other girls were in one class, while i was in the other class - one on one with the teacher! doing this really forced me to learn chinese like i never did before: out of fright that the teacher would yell at me ha ha ha. anyways beijing is an amazing city. i thought the pollution would get to me, but the government made some drastic efforts to blow it all away when the olympics came. i hope it stays that way but it probably won't...beijing is so crowded! the only olympic event i kind of got to see was on the street - there was this bicycle race that zoomed past me in about 10 seconds. but i have it all on camera  and when the cyclists were riding bye, my friends and i screamed so loudly that several of them turned to look at us and smiled. he he.
i'm going to pretend to be diligent now and begin my essay
jia you kate lee
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