Boo!
I need something to get excited about.
It always intrigues me when white people like to discuss what they “are.”
While I was growing up, I was always asked if I was Chinese. Now, I get Japanese or “Hawaiian”. When the inevitable question of “what are you?” is finally thrown at me, it is always relatively cut and dry: my dad is Filipino (Batangas, thanks for asking) and my mom is white.
White.
What does it mean to be “white”? People always ask, without fail.
When you give an American white the chance to say what they “are”, you often get a barrage of Western European countries. Calling Americans “American” seems to make them feel short-changed ethnically. They are 5th generation French, 7th generation Dutch, 5th generation German, and whatever other countries make up the European Union. “American”, to most Americans, is not an ethnicity.
I saw my ailing grandfather today, in State College, PA - the hilly college town that houses the Nittany Lions. Afterward, somehow, the topic of genealogy came up.
My grandmother’s side of the family, the Sagendorfs, is from Germany. They came here in 1709, and lived in Germantown, NY for a long time.
My grandfather’s side of the family, the Cecils, includes ministers to Queen Elizabeth I, the first prime minister of England, and the Marquess of Salisbury (they are on the 7th in a row currently). They’ve been in America since sometime in the 1750s.
I think genealogy is awesome. Today I added Germany and Switzerland to my list of “origins.” But I hardly consider myself German or Swiss. It doesn’t seem right to keep adding cultures to a list if you neither practice tradition nor speak language.
As Scott’s buddy Brandon told him: if you speak three languages, you’re trilingual. If you speak two, you’re bilingual. If you speak one, you’re American. Yet this is part a distinct culture - even if it is a decided amalgamation of everything.
I think I’ll be answering “what are you?” with “Filipino and American.”
And, as Mary Mussman noted when Natalie and I joked about it in Wisconsin, Basque.
Basque, indeed.
Bacon cheeseburgers. Feels good, man.
I don’t do nearly enough today, and off to work tomorrow. Arjun’s moved in, so I don’t have to take the bus to work tomorrow.
I’m panicky about school again. Damn. I was going so well not thinking about school…and school’s not for another 10 weeks. I hate being anxious. It’s an awful feeling.
Another summer, another chance to blog, amirite? I have a little too much time on my hands on the weekends, so I figured I’d give this blogging thing a shot. On top of that, I’m actually using WordPress on my own domain and crossposting to tumblr, so let’s see how well it actually works - I know, at least, that I can’t delete tumblr posts remotely. Jennifer’s foray into CSS with WordPress on her trip to China (http://withthearidplainbehindme.wordpress.com/) has convinced me that I need to do the same - CSS/HTML/PHP is hardly CS and is rather lame, but web dev seems more and more important. Hopefully I’ll have some fun web apps written for myself on Ruby or Python by the end of the summer. I need need need to learn CSS. The WordPress backend I’m using to post this from is so ugly.
Hopefully lots of dope things will happen this summer. I have a lot of time to myself, so I’ll get a lot of working out/music/coding done.
CU is gorgeous with no one around. It’s a lot easier to appreciate the beautiful campus here without worrying about getting to class on time.
Today I grilled steaks with Nobie and Scott. I like this grilling on weekends thing…hopefully it becomes a common occurrence.
Dutch house/rave mix coming soon, hopefully. Been so busy this week that I haven’t had as much music stuff going on.
Cool. Hopefully I can keep up with this blogging thing. I’m glad that the crossposting works.
And finally, this thing looks awesome…would be amusing to compare one to an iPad.
Listing says APAD, but in Japan on release day for the iPad, they called it the iPed. Humorously, it appears that the product is the ‘iPed’ on the box and “aPad” in the instruction manual. $200 for an Android device that has a 7” screen? Sounds good to me.
