Week 2: “I’ll take two times the misery and half the glory, then learn to be the champion of the story.” New Fears by Lights

Seminar Thoughts: I’m a shy person so speaking up in class without raising my hand was always difficult. It’s so funny, thinking about raising our hand to speak like “yes teacher give me permission to exercise my voice” but I get it because we all can’t speak out at once and it takes practice to let others speak and while we listen before responding. Every time I’ve been in seminar or in a seminar-like setting, my shyness gets in the way. And then my unprepared-ness gets in the way. And then my “I’m tired and don’t want to talk” gets in the way. And then I end up not saying anything. But I’ve been trying to step out of that, it takes a lot out of me mentally to speak because I’ve been so used to not speaking and diminishing the thoughts and the voice I have. In knowing that those neg thoughts don’t serve me, I’ve been trying to do the opposite. But I still need to feel comfortable in the environment to open my mouth and participate. I know I got to push myself though, dive into the discomfort because it’s really not as bad as my distorted thoughts make it so. But last Friday I was kind of uncomfortable. It felt good to focus on the voices of the people of color in my seminar and relating to what they’re saying because I see things the same ways too. I diminish my own voice by thinking they can word their thoughts better, more powerfully and effectively than I can. I also said to myself that I need to read better so I can synthesize the text better. I’m just thinking of ways I can enhance my experience here, asking myself what can I do to maximize my learning.

General Class Thoughts: On the field trip this past Tuesday, it was important for me to not isolate myself from my peers, especially the other women of color in the class. It’d be so easy to walk around the museums on my own, go to lunch alone, sit by myself on the bus, be entirely by myself thinking no one notices me. And that’s the way I’ve lived life and lol I didn’t want to do that. So I had lunch with some very cool people and it was just a comfortable calm time. One thing I hate that I think I have to do is overextend myself and do more than what I’m comfortable with in making conversation. All I got to be is myself and it’s funny how it’s such a simple thing to say and also very hard to do in action. One thing struck me throughout the week, it’s something I have felt for quite some time. I feel intimidated being around other woc, especially if they’re API. There’s absolutely nothing they are doing to make me feel this way. It’s something within myself, my own insecurities on not having a very strong cultural and ethnic identity. Being so Americanized I just feel like I’m not “good enough” to be around other people. I’ve been in a workshop with other Pilipinx people where they knew more about the history and the culture than I did and I literally had to leave because I felt like I didn’t belong. I was/am too American, not enough “Asian.”  Something that is hard for me to understand is that a lot of other people have this same experience. It’s not just me.

Life Stuff: I always don’t like it when people ask me what my major is and what I’m doing after I graduate and what are my career plans. I always say I Don’t Know and it’s both true and a way to close the conversation so the person hopefully stops talking to me. That always annoyed Jackson but Friday night I told him my future-career-life plan and he was like Awe Richelle thank you for sharing that with me in that voice he does (awwww). I remember talking about my future for the first time with my TRiO advisor and just completely crying and blowing my nose. It’s such a sore thing to talk about, I never EVER thought about my future, but now it’s like right here. And this is why I’m asking myself what can I do to enhance my experience here, how can I maximize my learning. Also I need to think about what I’m going to do after I graduate. Haha, because it’s going to come quick. 2018 is just around the corner.

And that is why this blog post is called New Fears. It’s a song by Lights from her new album Skin & Earth. This song has been playing in my head throughout the week.