Category — Site Authors

Photo taken by Brian Yee

As I warmed up with the girls, the tingling in my foot grew into a sharp sting. “Sara, it’s really starting to hurt,” I confided in my teammate. I continued to jog, wondering if I would actually race that day. “Maybe you shouldn’t run,” she suggested. I knew that was an option, but it was certainly not one that I was leaning towards. “You know what?” Sara continued, “Just scream out during the race if you’re in pain, and I’ll turn around to help you.”

“No!” Tamara’s voice broke in, “You are never supposed to do that.” I knew she was right. I learned this early on in my track career. During the cross-country championship in my freshman year of high school, I had a friend who was experiencing severe stomach pains during the competition. She was bent over, clutching tightly to her stomach, as if she were about to collapse at any moment. As she slowed down, I slowed down with her, but her reaction was rather unexpected. “Are you kidding?” she cried as she looked up at me, “Just go! Goooo!” Confused at first, I finally sped up, running past her through the steep hills of the concrete course.

At the time, the concept of abandoning a teammate was quite foreign to me. I was sure that Sara must have been just as bewildered to learn of this code. “Don’t worry,” I assured her, “It’s really important that you finish your race.” While the idea of leaving behind a teammate once seemed unethical, I now realize that in the competitive world of running, it’s not always wrong to go ahead.

Opera focuses on two senses that a human possesses: sight and sound. Rigoletto not only focused, but also pushed our senses to the limits with eye-popping set design, costumes that would put Queen Elizabeth’s garments to shame, and beautiful voices like no others that you have ever heard before.

“La donna è mobile; Qual piuma al vento, Muta d’accento — e di pensiero.”
The words have been stuck in my head since I have left the Metropolitan Opera a few hours ago after seeing Rigoletto. The opera featured many famous arias that have left an impression on me, but none like “La donna è mobile.“ There was a fundamental musical harmony and catchy tune to the aria. Perhaps it is due to the numerous times I have heard it in my childhood, but the catchy tune being combined with the beautiful voice of Francesco Meli evoked a unique feeling of connection to the opera. It would be unfair to say that the other arias like “Caro nome” and “Questo o quella” played a lesser role in the opera, since their presence augmented the opera in a different way – it is the combination of all these famous arias into one opera that makes Rigoletto such an astonishing performance to witness, and, more specifically, listen to. One voice in counterpoint with another, in harmonic conjunction with a third, while being bolstered by the orchestra’s music made the singing a pure delight for listeners’ ears.

The chandeliers rise up, the lights dim, and the curtains withdraw. The setting of Rigoletto starts in the castle of the Duke of Mantua. I could not believe my eyes when looking at the set design. Three-dimensional sets that fooled me into thinking they were made of genuine stone, real fire from torches used for effective illumination, and a gorgeous cloudy backdrop, which I wished was resembling our New York City weather last night, all put the viewer in the setting of the 16th century in France. The setting was only half of the visual drama going on, however. The actors had on some of the most elaborate décor and performed very dramatically to give the viewer a true understanding of what the definition of “drama” truly is: an episode that is highly turbulent and emotional.

If alluring music and fancy costumes do not impress you, the storyline of Rigoletto truly will. Rigoletto is a jester to the Duke of Mantua and during one party, where the Duke starts seducing Count Ceprano’s wife, he takes his jesting too far. Monterone, the countess’s father, shows up very dramatically at the party with the words “My voice like thunder will reach you everywhere.” He tries to denounce the duke for seducing his daughter, but instead is mocked by Rigoletto, whom is soon cursed by Monterone. Suddenly, the music gets darker and you can feel that the spookiness of this tragedy begins with Monterone’s curse.

The scene soon changes to another beautiful setting – Rigoletto’s home. Here, he meets the assassin, Sparafucile, whom he agrees to pay in exchange for having the Duke killed for the numerous times he has abused his poor jester, including the latest wrongdoing being the Duke taking a liking towards Rigoletto’s daughter. Little does Rigoletto know that his daughter’s fate will end up in the hands of this assassin. A great example of dramatic irony is presented to us immediately following Rigoletto’s ordeal with the assassin when we get to see his daughter being taken away by noblemen, and he himself helping them because it is dark and he is tricked into believing he was abducting Count Ceprano’s wife.

Like any tragedy, Rigoletto has an ending that breaks the hearts of its viewers. What piqued my interests in the final scene, however, was not the fate of Gilda, but rather the contrast that Giuseppe Verdi decided to use in his music and visual spectacles. A piccolo playing a joyful tune often accompanied the lightning on the set, and the devastating death of Gilda did not seem so horrifying with the music that was provided at the moment. It made the listener question the effectiveness of, what was supposed to be, a scary scene. However, this was one of the few examples of a dichotomy in Rigoletto that really jumped out at me, and was certainly overshadowed by the harmony and flow of the rest of the opera.

Overall, it truly was a remarkable experience to sit through this classic monumental masterpiece, which has been performed eight-hundred and fifty-one times at the Metropolitan Opera, and countless others at other opera houses around the world. It has left a strong impression on me and I hope that all the future operas and performances in my life will be of equal caliber as Rigoletto, by Giuseppe Verdi.

“Where’s the shower Dad?” We had arrived on our farm in Costa Rica late the night before and I had gone straight to bed without having time to explore the place. Now I had just eaten breakfast after being given a tour of the farm. I had seen everything, from the outhouses to the ponds to all the animals; everything except a shower. Though it was still early, the sun was burning intensely and I sat down in the shade, unsuccessfully trying to cool off.

“I already showed it to you,” my dad said, pointing towards the bathroom. I checked through the door again and saw what my dad had meant by a shower, a drooping hose sticking out through the wall. I turned the tap and water trickled out slowly.

“I can’t wash my hair in that!” I told my dad.

“Well Pedro and Gustavo usually wash themselves in the river,” my dad said and told me to walk up the road and down into the valley where the river lay. I set off on the dusty path with my sisters and an armful of colorful shampoos and soaps. After trekking up a steep hill and sliding down a muddy slope we arrived at the river, overheated and exhausted. The river ran down from the mountain and had formed a clear pool of water where the path had taken us. It was a peaceful place, closed in by a leafy emerald canopy. I stripped down to my bikini and dipped my toe in the water. I pulled it out immediately with a shriek, struck by the icy cold. I hardened my resolve and walked in up to my ankles, waiting for several minutes to adjust to the cold temperature. As I started to take my next step, I slipped and fell on a slimy rock, submerging my whole body in the pool. After a few seconds of shock my body adjusted to the freezing temperature. From that moment on, I learned that diving right in without any hesitation was the easiest and least painful way to get in the water.

My sisters and I would go wash our hair in the river every morning, sometimes joined by Pedro and Gustavo. We would lather up, then dive down and swim along the rocky bottom, allowing the flow of water to wash the suds from our hair. These were the most fun, relaxing “baths” I have ever taken and those mornings at the river are one of the things I miss most about our time in Costa Rica.

Shoes.  There’s so much you can infer about a person just by looking at their shoes (or if they’re wearing them at all).  Are they clean, are they dirty, are they creased? Are they sneakers, high heels, platforms, boots, wedges, or sandals?

Most people I know put a lot of thought into what kind of shoes they wear because of how they want to be perceived.  There are those that are Nike or Puma or Converse loyalists, and there are those that will choose heels over flats because she thinks it looks better.  I confess myself to be shoe obsessed but nowhere near Imelda Marcos (who owns over 2700 pairs!).  Although I own shoes from my Adidas Samba Vintage’s to 6-inch hot pink heels, I am very particular about the shoes I wear.  In the end, they have to feel good and look good.

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However, after years of dance and soccer, the bones in my feet have shifted, and it made running for an extended amount of time painful.  So I looked up some shoes that would replicate barefoot running and I found Vibram FiveFingers.  The name is not exactly appealing and at first glance, I thought: “People actually wear those things??”  But after reading reviews for a while, and continued pain while running in my regular sneakers, I bought them.  When I got home and showed my family, they all laughed and said I would look ridiculous.  I’d seen them on some other people and they did look a bit odd; but if I could run comfortably in them, I wouldn’t care.

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I didn’t have a chance to run in them before going to New Mexico in a program where we would be doing water testing, a perfect opportunity to wear them anyway.  My roommate, a student from Puerto Rico arrived wearing the craziest looking sandals I’d ever seen.  She told me that she calls them the “amphibians” and that they were the most comfortable sandals ever.  When she wore them out, everyone commented on them; some were positive responses, but most people thought they were just weird.  A few days later, we went water testing and I brought out the Vibrams to which I was also questioned on my choice of footwear.  My roommate and I laughed at the interest in our shoes and everyone whether they liked them or not, were intrigued.

I wear them on all my runs now, and people stare sometimes, but I could care less.

Tavor in hand, ready. Left, Roni.

The sight of soldiers in pizza shops and the feeling of M16s brushing against my clothes were everyday occurrences during my year in Israel. Granted, it took some time to readjust to New York City life. Now, still, when I see a police officer, I notice (and smirk just a bit) at the small size of his gun. When I see the gun, I am reminded of the very unique experience I shared with a friend during my year abroad, shooting in a range. I have two memorabilia from that experience, one stronger than the other: a photograph—a precise candid shot of me at just the right angle—and a target sheet with more than one bull’s eye.

I remember our minivan rumbling down the dusty, dirt road smack in middle of the West Bank desert. This shooting range, located in Israel’s West Bank, is not just any shooting range. It felt like a real battlefield. In fact, as our instructor Roni taught us, it is an actual anti-terrorism base where the Israeli Defense Forces train soldiers for the army. Not an indoors entertainment complex, where you shoot behind protective glass. This was serious business.

Roni, the guy in charge, was a member of IDF, no Joe Shmoe with a job at an entertainment industry. The first gun I handled was the Israeli Tavor, the new gun replacing the standard M16 in IDF. On Roni’s “Up!” (or, in his Israeli accent, “Ahp!”), I pulled back and aimed for the target sheet, never mind the painful recoil of the rifle. We also experimented with handguns, a significantly harder skill to master. I must say, I did pre-tty well for a girl my age and size.

The coolest thing of all—and the most Israeli thing of all—was when Michael, our chaperon, a regular citizen (who happens to be on the security team in his neighborhood) took out his own M16 sniper. (Yes, he owns the gun and keeps it in his car sometimes.) Michael frequents this range so often that he created his own addition to the shooting game: aiming at bright blue balloons instead of the standard target sheets. To his surprise and mine, I popped both balloons on my first two tries! Michael was so impressed; he nicknamed me “sharpshooter” the rest of the day.

New-Yorker born-and-bred, artillery as a commonplace of public life was at first shocking to me: the NYPD seemed tame compared to the super-tough Israeli soldiers. I definitely got a glimpse into life on the wild side, foreign to native New Yorkers.

When having trouble describing a neighborhood, I look around. I do the Cha-Cha Slide: a slide to the left, then the right, then back. A mental tap-dance on the New York City map is all I need to get me in the right direction.

So when I needed to find a Rite Aid close by the dorm, I shimmied around the Lower East Side until I found it. A few taps to the right is Chinatown, to the left are some projects, with some hip little restaurants and dives in between.

As it turns out, the only Rite Aid on my dance floor was a jive to the left. The art galleries and boutiques gave way to factories and large housing projects. While marching down the blocks I saw a sad little book lying on its side, wet and worn-down, its title face-up for the world to mock.

“The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama” sighed the dog-eared pages of this melancholy little novel. The sight of the lonely block littered with nothing – no people, or stores – but this book, left a sour taste in my mouth. It made me chuckle at its irony, but overall was a pretty bitter image. I shook my head, took a snapshot, and reluctantly rumba’d on my way.

It was last weekend, while I was on the 7 train on my way to the required Macaulay Tech Fair when I stumbled upon an awesome cultural encounter. I was just sitting down on the train at Main Street Flushing, waiting for the it to finally leave the station, when a tiny Asian woman with a big pink suitcase walked through the doors and sat next to me.

This was all fine and dandy, but then she started to lean over me. I just sat there thinking why is this woman leaning over me. But then I noticed that she was trying to read the little sticker that listed all the stops the 7 train made. All of a sudden, in broken English, she asked whether or not the train went to Grand Central.  “Yea,” I said. She smiled, but I didn’t know if she got it or not. Then she asked me how many stops till we got there.  I told her, but she kept leaning over me looking at the sticker. I then realized that she was probably confused by the fact that we were already passed 40^th street and proceeding on to 33^rd st. She knew she was getting off at 42^nd street. This meant that she probably didn’t know the streets were different in Manhattan. She got really nervous, until she heard another lady on the train, who was apparently speaking her native tongue.  This was a relief to me. After a quick back and forth between the two, for the first time, the woman sitting next to me looked satisfied and relieved.

Eventually, a mariachi band decided to come on the train wearing the costumes and everything. To make matters worse for the poor woman, the lady who spoke the woman’s language got off at Queensboro Plaza, making the woman stand up, probably out confusion and distress.  This forced another conversation between the two until finally the train doors closed. I realized that the lady leaving, because she was using her fingers, had told the woman that the train would eventually get to Grand Central in four more stops.

By the time we got to Vernon Blvd. the lady was leaning over me again staring at the little sticker while glancing at a piece of paper with a bunch of writing on it. All I could make out on it was, “42^nd Street Grand Central.”  In an attempt to reassure her I said, “Next stop,” trying not to confuse her, I put up one finger. She understood and looked relieved, at least she stopped leaning over me. Four minutes later we were pulling into Grand Central, I said, “This is it.” She proceeded to thank me, picked up her enormous pink suitcase and left through the train doors.

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On Thursday morning, I was hired at Sunrise Mart and went in for my first day of training that night. Sunrise Mart is a quaint, authentic Japanese market nestled on the second story of an old building in St. Mark’s Place that I had been frequenting since I discovered it some weeks before.

My first day of work was nerve wracking, but incredibly fun. I enjoyed ringing up groceries and politely conversing with customers in both English and Japanese. One thing I noticed was that, more often than not, the customers wanted to give exact change. Rather than hurrying to pay for their groceries, it seemed much more important to get rid of those pesky coins weighing down pockets and purses. I remembered that this had been the trend in Japan as well and coin purses of every style imaginable could be found.

I remember having a huge amount of trouble giving exact change in Japan. It is so easy for me to add up our quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies into correct amounts so that I get nothing but nice crisp bills in return. In Japan, I just couldn’t do it. Something that seems almost second nature to me in the United States was quite a time-consuming task in Japan. At some stores, my friend would simply lose patience and take my coin purse from me, putting the accurate coins down, while I stood by blushing. On the other hand, when I had a Japanese foreign exchange student live with me, she ended up with almost fifteen dollars in coins because she did not want to embarrass herself by taking so long to count out change in stores.

At one point, one of my Japanese customers was fishing through his coin purse for coins. After fussing with the coins for about a minute, he thrust his wallet into my hand and said, “you do it”. I could not help laughing as I began counting out his coins, saying, “it’s okay, in Japan, I had the same problem”. Feeling less embarrassed, he smiled and remarked “no matter where you are, money is hard, isn’t it?”

Isn’t that the truth?

For the Columbus Day weekend, two of my friends came back from college for a few days. One from Trinity College in Connecticut, and one from the University of Buffalo. After talking to both of them individually about their respective schools and how they liked it, I realized how much I missed out on by staying home for college. One of the two referred to their college life as being a “fantasy world.” He’s having the time of his life being away at school on his own and he’d rather stay there all year than come home to visit. He says coming back to Brooklyn is like coming back to reality, and it’s depressing to him. He loves the independent lifestyle and the enjoyment of living with friends. He’s having the time of his life at school and doesn’t want that feeling to end.

My brother, Kevin, went to Binghamton University and graduated in 2008. Ever since then he’s talked about how much he misses college. I never really knew if this was how everyone felt until I heard all my friends that went away talk about how much they love it. As much as I am happy for them that they’re having a good time, their good time makes me feel like I made the wrong decision on staying home for school.

The college lifestyles of staying home and going away vary in many ways. Staying home, I still feel constricted in the same house with my parents, my aunt, and my brothers. I feel like I’m living the same way I’ve been living the past seventeen years of my life. There hasn’t been a change. From what I’ve seen and heard, going away to college is a thrill, an excitement, and a mystery. It’s something new. It brings on new challenges, new stories, and life lessons. I feel like I’m missing out on an important aspect of life by staying home.

Sure, I like Baruch College and Macaulay, but I think college is about more than just the school, the academics, and the grades. It’s about the whole experience with new people, new places, and a new environment. With that being said, I feel like I didn’t give myself a chance to have all those experiences when I made the decision to stay home.

This weekend I experienced something that truly was mind blowing. As I was walking through my neighborhood I saw someone who stuck out like a sore thumb. There was a large group of Korean people walking down the block and I knew they were Korean by the language they were speaking. Right in the center of this large crowd I saw three older members who were wearing traditional Korean clothing. They were also speaking Korean with the younger youth they were surrounded by. The younger teenagers were wearing clothing that we would normally see on the streets. This was an interesting sight because not only was there a stark difference in age but also a difference in culture. The older people most likely came from Korea and decided to wear a more traditional outfit, while the younger kids definitely grew up in America. Everyone got along perfectly fine and it seemed like this cultural difference did not exist. The teenagers showed the older people a great amount of respect, constantly bowing to them and putting their heads down to show respect. Although, at first glance it seemed that this group would not get along, that is actually not true because everyone got along very well even though there was this generation gap. I was surprised that everyone in the group got along and thought that no matter how different or culturally different people were they could get along with proper effort.