I think I’m finally ready for the post…

Posted: June 5, 2011 | Author: Sharon | Filed under: Personal, School | 2 Comments »

I think I’m finally ready for the post. People have been asking me how it feels to be graduating, and I honestly did not have an answer because I just didn’t have the time to sit down and think about it. Yes, some of my closest friends have left already, and we’re trying to take advantage of everything we can before we leave this place. Yet, it hasn’t hit me yet. I can’t quite fully grasp the idea of leaving Mount Holyoke, a place I have come to call home.

I still remember how tired I was when I first came to Mount Holyoke. I was exhausted from the three hour ride from JFK with my dad. We had only briefly stopped at McDonalds to grab a burger and he had sped all the way up. I knew that South Hadley wasn’t much of a city, but I wasn’t ready for what I was about to get myself into. The first few days, the weather was nice, the view of the lake from my small Prospect double was pretty impressive, and the sound of ducks and geese flying across the lake made me smile. But that was just the first few days. Then it got colder, the view got old, and the ducks began to get louder, and more annoying. Thank God I had Mia, Aileen, and Kimmy. I still can’t forget the look on Mia’s face when we first met. She opened the door to our room only to find me in bed, wrapped in pink floral sheets. Yes, I was asleep in bed at ten in the morning, and I blame it entirely on jet lag. To make the matters worse, the room was already a mess before she stepped in. I had been unpacking the night before, when I gave up trying to organize my things, rummaged through the luggage for my pjs and went straight to bed. I can just imagine what her family must have thought. A wonderful friendship blossomed between us despite a terrible first impression, and I don’t think I could have kept my job at the writing center if it weren’t for Mia, who worked as a receptionist and took care of everything when I was sick, when I was late, and even when I overslept.

First year was a blast. I still remember our first mall trip, when we sped across the aisles with the carts at Target, and our a random photoshoot in the hallway (and had to use the self timer and hang the camera on the smoke detector to get a picture of all of us). We used to have surprise birthday parties with paper candles because we were noobs and didn’t want to set off the fire alarm. And that’s back when we used to dance to Night at the Roxbury, do a parody of BigBang’s Lies, and watch endless Korean dramas (the last two might have been just Aileen and me). It was our first Halloween together although we mostly improvised and I can’t remember what everyone was except for Mia who wore a children’s Tinker Bell costume. That year was our first Drag Ball together too, when Aileen and I borrowed Matthew’s uniform and decided to show guys what it feels like to be grabbed from behind. We were so young and naive.

(at Target)

(random photoshoot in Prospect)

(KASA firstie dance)

(Drag Ball 2008)

If I had thought first year was the highlight of my college career, my second year definitely proved me wrong. That’s when we became active in the five college area, moved away from sweaty Amherst dorm basement parties to sweatier Umass frat parties, and developed a curious foursome relationship that continues till today. I remember my sophomore Halloween, when we waited for Crystal and started making our Toga costumes at 9pm, an hour before we were supposed to leave campus. We were sticking green Laurel leaves on our blank white t-shirts and cutting holes in our t-shirts so it would actually look like a Greek toga. I happened to cut a huge hole out of my t-shirt, and all I could try to do at that point was to make a bandeau and pretend I was Eve. By the time we were ready to leave, it was 11, the party we were planning to go to was over capacity, and we ended up freezing out in the cold for close to an hour in our little white handmade and hand-glued toga costumes.

(Halloween 2008)

(Golden Eye)

(Drag Ball 2009)

(Our favorite Japanese restaurant in St Marks)

This is also the year I became an assistant editor of News at Mount Holyoke News and met a former New York Times journalist who soon became my role model and my favorite professor at Mount Holyoke. It was a busy year for News, with racial profiling allegations, problems with the presidential search committee selection process, and inevitable budget cuts. The first two were tough, much tougher than any other issue I had to cover. I had approached the two issues with a genuine heart and a journalistic spirit, wanting to uncover the truth and bring a sense of urgency to the ongoing but neglected issue of racism. But in both cases, I was faced with people who didn’t trust me as a reporter, those who doubted my ability to clearly illustrate their situation, their thoughts and feelings, and those who saw me as an outsider because of my role as a reporter. The presidential search committee became an issue because the student government became responsible for selecting two students for the committee, and it so happened that the five students they selected and interviewed were all white. Some people raised the question of fairness in the process, and when the administration tried to ignore the issue, the tension between the administration and the organized cultural groups that represented students of color heightened. I remember going to one of the “students of color” meetings partly to show support and partly because I wanted more information as a reporter. As soon as I entered the room, all eyes were on me, and I could sense their doubt and their discomfort. I cannot forget the hostility in one of their voices. “Why are you here?” she asked. “If you’re here as one of us, then you can stay, but if you’re here to report, then I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.” I ended up leaving after a few minutes.

The start of my third year was full of hope. I took on a leadership role in 5PAN as a conference chair, I started a chapter of LiNK at Mount Holyoke with Melissa, and I was to study abroad in England in the spring. Study hard, party hard was our motto, but not everything went the way I had hoped. I got my first C ever and the same semester, had an unfortunate encounter in front of Chapin one night. The fast-paced, busy lifestyle at Mount Holyoke was weighing on me, and I was desperately seeking an escapade. And that’s when I finalized my decision to study abroad at the University of Sussex.

It was my first time in Europe, although it definitely won’t be my last, because I absolutely loved every minute of it. Well, that’s a lie, because my first day in Brighton was a disaster. I was out of cash, and the buses weren’t running because of the three inch snow (which apparently was the worst snowstorm for thirty years). I was lugging three huge suitcases across the city at 3 in the morning, and I just wanted to collapse and die. Luckily, a cab driver spotted me, and drove me to the nearest atm. My first week in Brighton wasn’t all that fun either. I had no friends, I was jetlagged, and I hated the wintery cold. I was hungry, but didn’t have any food, let alone know how to cook. The showers were so tiny that I had to position myself a particular way to rub soap on my legs. To make things worse, the view from my room made me feel like I was in a dungeon because my dorm was shaped like a hollow rectangle and I was assigned one of the rooms that faced inward.

But it didn’t take me long to discover Brighton, with its beachfront clubs that turned into bars during the day, expensive alcohol and cheap roll up cigarettes, cute shops and restaurants that lined the long windy lanes. Brighton is where I rediscovered music and fell in love with dubstep and drum and bass, thanks to Chantal and Gordon. Each club had a special night out for each night of the week, including poundance at digital and Wed nights at Audio, and when the late night munchies hit us, we would go out for fish and chips or my favorite, kabob sandwiches. I would stay in Brighton during the week and save the weekends for Aileen–or London. If Brighton was about wearing over the shoulder tops with sneakers, taking red double-decker buses, and partying with college students, London was about sequin dresses, high heels, red lipstick, fancy lounges, high end clubs, and businessmen in suits.

Our adventures did not end there. It continued to Munich, Stockholm, Paris, Marrakesh, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, Florence, Venice, Athens, and Amsterdam. I didn’t get a chance to travel to eastern Europe, which means I need to come back someday (even if it’s just for trance concerts and Roman bath parties my friend raved about).

(Munich)

(Stockholm)

(Brighton)

(Florence)

(Digital)

(Brighton beach)

I thought I would miss England terribly when I came back to the States, and I did, but my last year at Mount Holyoke didn’t disappoint either. This past year just flew by. I started going to akc again, I fell in love with Economics (to a point where I wish I had majored in Economics instead), and I finally resigned from my assistant editor position in Mount Holyoke News. I stayed on campus for Christmas for the first time, took six classes at once for the first time, wrote a forty page paper (the longest I’ve ever written), confronted a professor for calling, albeit jokingly, Psalms 23 “horseshit,” and told another professor I used to have a crush on her (in front of close to a hundred people gathered in Chapin). I bonded with the Korean American community, became obsessed with big two and power uno, attended small group almost every week and developed an unusual sisterhood with my accountability group partners. From SAW senior reception, AKC senior banquet, my last day with Kunku, the Bahamas trip, stoling ceremony, Baccalaureate service, commencement, to packing last minute and leaving just in time to catch my flight at JFK, everything made it that much harder for me to leave. I don’t think I could have even packed up and left without the help of my closest friends.

(Convocation 2010)

(BAASIC 2010)

(Random photoshoot behind Prospect)

(AKC retreat 2011)

(Vegas Night?)

(Valentines Party 2011)

(Canoeing on the upper lake)

(Senior Ball 2011)

(Diamonds Disco at Carnival)

(Nassau)

(Stoling Ceremony)

(Laurel Parade)

(Commencement 2011)

People ask me why I love Mount Holyoke so much, and yes, it’s about the amazing professors, the beautiful campus, and the liberal arts education, but it’s more about the people you meet. The people who make you feel at home. The people who make you love life all over again.

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