Pico De Gallo

It seems trivial now that i worried so much about getting along with my room mates as we sit and bond with chatty girl talk. But upon first arriving i was greeted by two wacky suitemates that only exhaserbated my nervous jitters of the first day of college.  I worried night and day about how i was going to deal with the apparent "triscuit monster" (my room mate that decided to cover our floor in broken triscuits ) and the other room mate that wouldn't stop apologizing for everything. But all it took was one night out and some extra sour cream on our burritos at a small hole in the wall restaurant on south street to start the understanding and stop the judging. Now there isn't a time we don't joke around and accept each other quirks as just that, part of their personality that goes unchanged and influences me to be myself. i sat down to write this blog on my bed while my sick room mate sneezed and coughed beside me, but before i even started the first sentence my room was suddenly filled with laughter.The apologizing room mate just got back from professing her love to a boy she has known all her life and found out it was not unrequited. We now share stories of our past and hopes for our future. I hope the sour cream and burritos never run out.

University 101 is not pointless

Traditional homework to me usually consists of reading or comprehension exercises and rarely requires me to venture away from my desk. But upon arriving as a student at Drexel, and attending my Univ101 class, I was forced out my conventional shell and shoved into a brand new city as part of my homework assignment. I was encouraged to go see new things and experience them for the first time as a student of the world instead of just an eighteen year old girl from New York. So as per my homework i set out with a subway map, fifteen dollars, my cultural passport, and a mission to see and learn something new. 

As a girl from New York, I was skeptical at first to see what I could possibly experience in a City much smaller than mine that I hadn't already been accustomed to. But of course, I spoke too soon. I sat down with the subway map ashamed of myself. I knew where I was, but I had no idea as to how to get where I was going. The stubborn New Yorker in me refused to take out the subway map at first, but the scarred teenager in me over ruled and I reluctantly gave into my defeat of having a great sense of direction. And within the next few moments something would occur to me. Philadelphia was making me street dumb. I already had a good sense of how to navigate through a city. But that was when I knew where I was going and where to avoid. But in this new city I was certainly clueless. Until a man I named Chuckles stepped into my life. My first instinct was to walk away and walk away fast. but something told me to just give him a chance. Well it turns out that he used to work for septa and knew every route by heart. I had chosen the right homeless man to not ignore.  

My cultural passport forced me into a new city to discover new things and in the process made me discover new things about myself and the people that populate Philadelphia. I learned that while my first instinct is usually the smartest one, it won't always get me where I need to go. I have learned to take the New Yorker in me and tone her down a bit and not be so bitter.  It turns out being street dumb in the city of brotherly love will actually make you smarter.

Overprotective Parents.

       As the child of Indian, Christian parents, I can say that in some respects my parents were very similar to the parents described in the article. Because they are not used to the customs and traditions in this country, they often feel the need to shelter my siblings and myself under the umbrella of their own. It is not easy to raised as an Indian while living in America. Especially since even my Indian cousins who live in India have parents who allow them to be more Western than my own. It's understandable - they, like most people, are frightened by what they do not know and understand and have tried their hardest to keep my siblings and me the way they understand children to be from their outdated ideas from their childhood. 

This method may have worked if I had lived in India for a bit or if I didn't have to go to school with people who with their parents epitomized the American culture. Since I was forced to go to school just like everyone I envied, it leads to a lot of questions that can't be answered by my parents or friends, they had to be answered by me. I don't know half of us first generation kids made it past elementary school - our parents have made us so conflicted between the way they want us to be and the people they wanted us to grow up with. 

The article mentions a lot of people whose parents pay for extra services to get them into Ivy league schools. Personally, I don't know anyone who's parents would pay so much money for that. It's a ridiculous amount of money. To be honest, when cell phones first came out, it was the one gift that I wanted. Once I got one, I hated it because my parents wanted me to call every minute of everyday. I understand that parents worry about their kids, but it's rather annoying to be tabbed all the time. When I first read about it in the article - I didn't think of my parents, I thought of the mother in the movie Daddy Day Care who gives her daughter a cell phone and tells her to call 911 in an emergency. A boy at the day care takes the girls dolls and rips the head off causing the girl to call 911 and tell the operator, "He's killing my baby!" 

Another thought I had while reading this article came from another article I read. It claimed that children whose parents are not overly watchful, who maybe let their kids play outside unsupervised for a bit, end up having far superior communications skills and are much better at making friends. If that's true than these over parenting parent are probably hurting their children's chances of getting into a goods school. In which case this over parenting or super parenting or whatever its called is completely ridiculous. 

Response to "Parents and Grades"

I know so many kids whose parents are exactly like this, and although they also graduated top in their class. While this is a very highly regarded accomplishment, if it means you had to suffer for four years of your life I don't think its worth it at all. Some were rewarded with money. All I ever got was a pat on the back. Parents need to stop living vicariously through their children and just be satisfied with their happiness. 

The Child Trap

For the most part, I would say this article is spot-on. Even from an average citizen's viewpoint, it is very evident that parents are completely over bearing. Television ads are also a reflection of this. All types of toys and games claiming to increase brain function at an early age. As stated in the article, studies have shown these really do no good. Although I would not consider my parents "over-bearing" I am an only child and they have devoted a lot, possibly too much, attention towards me. Before I was born my mother read every single parenting book she could get her hands on. As a child they were very protective over germs and made me have a small container of hand sanitizer at school. Besides the fact that during my childhood they watched my every move, as I got older they lightened up and let me do things on my own more. Now, after being in college, they have realized they have virtually no control over me anymore and accept the fact that I'm a little wilder than they would like. 

Parenting: Can There be too Much?

I apologize for the lateness.

The article, "The Child Trap," describes a new emergency that exists in today's world. This emergency is that of Over-Parenting. This article claims that the parents who show their children too much attention are actually hurting their kids. The article claims that if a parent was to do too much for their kids that their kids wouldn't preform well in the real world. I have seen many examples of this right here at Drexel. I know of one student that was so homesick that she decided that she wanted to move out and head back home. She would rather commute to school. The problem occurs after she graduates and lands a job. Will she still live at home? There comes a time when you need to be independent and experience life on your own terms. The post entitled, "Over-parenting an Emergency," explains a different effect. He explains that his parents tried to shelter him too, and filled his schedule, so that he would have little time to experiment with cigarettes, drugs and parties. He believes that as he got older he was more curious than a child who experienced less parenting and lived somewhat of an average life. For the most part, I agree with what he had to say, but he said that reverse-psychology plays a role from excessive parenting. I disagree, I think a parent should explain why partying and drugs are bad, and explain the consequences so that the child wouldn’t be tempted to even try.