Realization

I can't fight my expectations; I always lose.

Great Quotes...

Can you figure out what he was talking about? =)

"Who among us has not blamed the dog?"
--Larry Finkelstein, Dharma & Greg

Fairytale

Lovely princess,
your beauty beckons,
so I search for white steed
and hasten to your side

This dream, I know,
is but fairytale
Still my heart
cannot tell

Will I wake you with
my eager lips
or turn back into
toad?

This dragon
I do battle,
in truth
is not but fear

Fear that you
may shun me,
and turn my heart
to stone

These thoughts stop me
in my weary tracks,
as snow begins
to fall

But onwards I press,
clinging to hope,
yearning for something
more

I arrive at your side,
anxious for relief,
summoning the courage
to speak

Dare I risk
the end
of this fairytale dream
and fall back into slumber?

If I tell you now,
how I feel,
what will be
your answer?

My Myth, Chapters 1-3

Chapter 1: Death

The forces against me were too strong. The collective will of the world did not want me to live, and so I died there on the battlefield--sword in hand, cursing the noble cause of my master. But death was what was required of me; sacrificing myself was what duty demanded. I had served my function in life.

As I dissolved into the ether and watched as my existence faded away, I vowed not to return to this cruel world, this reality that had forsaken beauty and righteousness. Who would choose to exist here? Not me. Never again.


Chapter 2: Rebirth

I woke up screaming...

No, not again! I don't want to start all over again. Please, no more! I'm too tired to do this anymore.

You must, your journey is not yet complete...

Fine! Then at least let me forget. I don't want to remember; it hurts too much...

Then, forget...

Let this go by quickly; let me just get in, do my thing, and then get out...

...forget...

After that, there will be no more...

...forget...

There must not be anymore...

...forget...

Chapter 3: Prologue

It is said in my family that I was supposed to be the first-born. The doctor had told my parents that it would be a boy, and so my mother had already picked out the name Andrew. Holiday cards were printed, blue baby clothing was bought; they were ready to receive me. Apparently, however, I was not ready to come into the world just yet.

When my grandmother, on my father's side, sent my parents a set of pink baby clothes, my mother was furious! It was as if my grandmother countermanded my mother's desires by wanting the baby to be a girl. I didn't care, though. I gave up my place in line to my sister, happy to remain where I was for a while longer. So, out popped Angela, reluctant but willing to do her duty and take her place in this world ahead of me.

It would be my turn a year and a half later.

Freedom, Governance & Children

I assert that it is ultimately impossible for one person to know what is best for another because fundamentally they have their own separate and distinct lives. So, one's own wisdom gained over the years may not necessarily be applicable to another's life. Furthermore, the experience of making mistakes for oneself and learning from them is an invaluable tool for growth. That is the fundamental principle behind choosing Democracy as a principle of governance.

Instead of allowing self-appointed leaders to dictate societies, even if they are wise, well educated, and trained for the position, the population at large is allowed to make choices and mistakes that it may learn from. Even if the people do not make perfect or "correct" decisions, compared to a leader who "knows what's best" for society, in the end they will grow through the iterative learning process. Eventually, they will arrive at a better understanding of what is right for themselves. This is because they will have tangible, personal examples of good and bad decisions as well as outcomes from which to compare. So then, someone who always makes the "right" decision, especially if told to them by someone else, will never have a true understanding of their life or the world compared to someone who has had the freedom to make mistakes. Therefore, people must have the freedom to succeed as well as to fail; otherwise, their lessons will not truly be learned.

This may seem to be a trite and obvious conclusion when discussing the rights of adults in the context of society and government. So why, then, do we limit the domain of this thinking just to adults? Why do we stop short in our evaluation of what freedoms children deserve in their own lives? The typical response is: "Because we know what's best for them" or "They don't know what's best for themselves." Granted, they may not know what's best for themselves at any given moment, but it is erroneous for adults to assume that they do know what is best for any child. I am not claiming that I am somehow different from the rest of the adults and do know what's best for any particular child, but I do claim that the only person who has even a chance of knowing that is the child himself. Now, you may balk at that last sentence and think, "Ridiculous! So, you're telling me that a 2 year-old knows what's best for himself?!?!" No, I am not. What I am saying though is that they should be allowed to learn what is best for themselves over the course of time, and that should not begin after some arbitrary age. Of course, the younger children are, the more suceptible they are to mortal peril, due to their ignorance of the world, so there does need to exist some level of protection from irreversible trauma. However, I believe that should be the extent of guardianship adults have over children.

Timeline

June 7, 1977   Born, DePaul Hospital, St. Louis, MO
    daycare, Montessori
    preschool, Villa St. Joseph's
1982-83    Kindergarten, Mt. Providence
1983-84    1st grade, Mrs. Nero, Bellerive Elementary School
1984-85    2nd grade, Mrs. Brown, Bellerive Elementary School
Fall 1985   Entered gifted program w/ Mrs. Rae
1985-86    3rd grade, Mrs. Howell, Bellerive Elementary School
1986-87    4th grade, Mrs. Pleggy, Bellerive Elementary School
1987-88    5th grade, Mrs. Potts, Bellerive Elementary School
1988-89    6th grade, Mrs. Katz, Bellerive Elementary School
Summer 1989   Moved to Orland Park, IL (Chicago Southwest Suburbs)
1989-90    7th grade, Jerling Jr High (AT program)
Summer 1990   Purdue Star, SIU Carbondale, IMSA Summer AdVenture, Suzuki
1990-91    8th grade, Jerling Jr High/Glencrest Jr High
Winter 1990-91   Moved to Wheaton, IL (Chicago West Suburbs)
Summer 1991   Purdue Star, Northwestern Univ. CTD Summer Equinox, Taiwan
1991-92    9th grade, Glenbard South
1991-92    DuPage Comm. College, College for Kids (Geometry w/ Mr. Samide)
Summer 1992   Purdue Pulsar (Precalc), CTY @ Hampshire College, Amherst, MA
1992-93    9th grade, Univ. of Chicago Laboratory Schools
Summer 1993   Purdue Nova (Calculus)
Fall 1993   Simon's Rock College of Bard
Summer 1994   Ithaca, NY, Cornell Univ. physics class/(Cascadilla School) English w/ Ms. Bird
1994-95    11th grade, Minn. Academy of Math & Science/Cotter High School/Winona Senior High
1995-96    Freshman, Winona State Univ.
Fall 1995-96   Computer operator, Hal Leonard Corp.
1996-97    Sophmore, Winona State Univ.
Oct 1996-Nov 1997  Internship, Mayo Medical Center IS Dept., Rochester, MN
Summer 1997   Moved to Rochester, MN
Fall 1997   Junior, Winona State Univ.
Jan 1998   Moved to Sunnyvale, CA (South Bay San Francisco, Silicon Valley)
Jan-Oct 1998   co-op at Intel Corp.
Aug 1998   Moved to Santa Clara, CA (South Bay San Francisco, Silicon Valley)
Oct 1998-99   AllApartments.com/SpringStreet.com/Homestore.com
Nov 1999-Feb 2000  ePlanetCare.com
Mar 2000   Capetown, South Africa
2000-2001   Junior, Santa Clara Univ.
?Spring 2001   Mind the Dip CD release party
?Summer 2001   Festival of the Arts/Recital @ Santa Clara Univ.
Jul-Aug 2001   Cuba
Aug 2001-Feb 2002  Digital Source
2001-Mar 2002   Senior, Santa Clara Univ.
2002-2003   Albany Free School, Albany, NY
Jul 2003   IDEC 2003
Aug/Oct 2003   Moved to Angela's house, Woodbury, MN
Oct 2003   Meeting at Shetal's apt., Bloomington-Normal, IL
Nov 2003   Meeting at SF Bay Area
Jan-Feb 2004   Israel
Feb-May 2004   Woodbury, MN
Jun 2004  Moved into 728-8 City Walk Place, Hayward, CA 94541
Jun-Jul 2004   RPA, John's Hopkins CTY @ UC Santa Cruz
Aug 2004   Family trip to China
Jan 2005      The Nueva School, Hillsborough, CA
Mar 2005  Sabina's wedding in Delhi, India
Jul 2005  Moved into 1106 Laguna Ave #2, Burlingame, CA
Jun 2006  Left Nueva School

haven

once I sought a refuge
for my heart, mind, body, and soul
a place where love surrounds me
where friendship, community grow

it was a dream I had
a cure for my angst
a place to hold my desires safely
until I was no longer lost

where I found
was not actually a place
it was a people
who already knew my face

my spirit set free
my self was anchored
I no longer roamed this earth in anger

my thoughts became clear
my goals drew more near
I no longer woke up clamoring in fear

together we walked
we summoned our strength
no one could keep us from our due peace

as we stand
hand in hand
roots in ground
and branches reaching

I think at last
a thought without past
a feeling of joy
a contentment unsurpassed

that when we leave
we shall share this haven
with all who can
even those unable

"What's the point?"From the Other Point of View

written 14 July 2000 - 30 August 2000

published in The Communicator,
California Association for the Gifted Fall 2000 Vol. 31, No. 4

republished on Davidson Institute's GT-CyberSource

By Andrew Chen


Everyone seems to be so concerned with how, exactly, gifted children should be educated. You know, the most insulting thing a teacher has ever said to me is "Our job is to teach you how to learn." Now I know that she meant that in earnest, and that is what many teachers believe they are charged with doing, but believe me, that is not necessary. We are designed to learn from the minute we are born. We -- all of us -- are learning machines. For gifted children, especially, learning is like eating candy, and even when it's not a consciously activated process, they learn every waking minute regardless of what's going on. As long as you provide them with plenty to learn, inspire them, and let them do their job, they will become educated.

So let me tell you, then, that is not the most pressing problem I am concerned with. What makes growing up as a gifted child hard is simply surviving through the environment of childhood -- to be emotionally intact at the end of that experience so that your intellect can start doing what it's been preparing for your whole adolescent life. Many times a gifted child will not "fit into" their educational environment. There maybe endless speculations as to why, but the only solution which I have ever seen work is a social one. In fact, I believe that it's not even that important how much measurable learning they do at a place so as long as it's a good experience for them which they enjoy.


Let me first start by telling you about the single best educational experience I ever had. During my freshman year in high school, I took a geometry class in an extracurricular program for "talented youth" that the local community college, the College of Du Page, offered. It was taught by a exceptional teacher named Mr. Samide. Instead of making us do endless amounts of problem sets from a textbook, he gave us just five extremely difficult problems to do each week. He either came up with the problems himself or took them from ones he had encountered throughout his teaching experiences. I spent countless hours sitting at home working on those math problems until they were solved when I wouldn't even spend five minutes on easy problems sets that I had gotten from my regular school. He gave us geometry problems that forced us to use everything we had ever learned about mathematics in order to solve them, and one of the great aspects of the class was that there was never the "right" way to go about solving a problem. Each of us would work on them on our own and then, in the next class, we would openly discuss our approaches. Mr. Samide even gave us group problems in which we had to work together and feed off each others ideas to come up with a strategy for solving each problem. Also, if anyone came up with their own problem or conjecture it would become part of our weekly problem set. For me, this was the perfect way to learn. It forced me to work on the mechanics of proofs, geometry, algebra, and arithmetic because it was necessary to master those basic skills in order to solve these problems, which I was really inspired to find answers for. Instead of trying to teach us disjoint blocks of math skills, like in the conventional bottom-up approach, he gave us coherent problems which we had to break down, learn specific math skills for, and then put together to solve the problem at hand -- a top-down approach. It was a brilliant way of teaching, and I will always cherish that class.

Later on, though, I came to realize that a great educational experience is really a double edged sword. A child's education is bound to be mixed with both good and bad teachers, classes, and programs. Unfortunately, the better the best educational experience they have, the worse it can make their mediocre or bad experiences seem. Now, I'm not saying you should give up on trying to provide them with a good education, but be prepared to help them cope with their bad experiences after they have discovered a great teacher or program. It is precisely that contrast that adds a sense of bitter irony to the pursuit of a great education.

The contrast to my class with Mr. Samide was most of my junior high and high school experience. Despite my occasional straight "A" performance, I had an absolutely horrible time! I was alienated from the rest of my peers; I was depressed a lot; and I hated the kids, the teachers, and the administrators. It was so bad at times that I even listed the school building and the tap water in the water fountains as everyday things I hated. Consequently, I ended up staying home frequently and missing a lot of school. At least once a year I would switch schools, and I had to repeat my freshman year in high school in hopes of wiping my records clean. If I had no interest in a class, I would simply not put any effort into it. This meant that I would not do any of the homework, and that typically translated into an "F." At that point, I was already disenchanted with the whole notion of school as a learning institution and subsequently rejected grades as being a motivational factor or fair measure of learning. I found out that even if I got an "F" in a class, many times I would still take away more from the class than the students who got good grades. Everyone who tried to help me was fond of telling me that school was just a game that I had to get through and I should just learn to play that game. Once I was out, they said, I could complain about it as much as I liked, but no one would listen to me while I was still in school. However, stubborn as I was, I consciously choose not to play that game and would just accept an "F," and I continued on my crusade to expose the hypocrisy of the educational institutions I was stuck in.

A favorite story I like to tell is of a biology class I had in my second freshman year in high school. For the first half of the year, I had been doing very well in the class and had one of the highest grade averages in it. Later on in the year, however, I started experiencing problems in the school and stayed home a lot. My attendance was so sporadic, in fact, that kids would keep asking me whether I still went to that school or not. Suffice it to say, my grade in that class drop from an "A+" to a "D-" by the end of the year. Fortunately, my teacher was very nice and believed in me so she let me take the final exam, despite the futility in it. Lo and behold I got an "A" on it! There was definitely no cheating involved, so she ended up with a dilemma on her hands: should she give me an "A" for what I knew, or should she give me a "D" for the lack of work that I did, which would be fair to the other kids who worked hard for their grades? Well, to my great surprise and joy, she decided to give me an "A" because I had learned the material despite my "situation."


Through all of my schooling, I have found that the hardest thing about being gifted is simply not having many people like yourself around. Unlike being a jock or being cool, there's no tangible, positive identity to which you can associate yourself with or model yourself after. There's only really: the geek, the nerd, or the brain. Theses terms don't really have universal definitions, but in the circles I was around a geek was someone who had a lot of knowledge, usually technical, which could be applied -- like computer skills. A nerd was someone who had very esoteric interests such as bug collecting or trivia in which they engrossed themselves. The "brain" was the person everyone considered the smartest kid in school and was usually an academic performer with straight "A's." All of these stereotypes have ostracization as the penalty if you chose to accept them as who you are. I believe that If you take that difference away by putting them together with others like themselves, even for part of the year, they can begin to go through a normal childhood development.

Childhood is fraught with an endless series of rites of passages, and it's important to have someone who can help guide you through that. What has saved me through my journey of educational institutions has always been programs in which I interacted with other kids like myself or adult role models who understood me and weren't condescending. Now, there will still be those who will not fit into even those environments, but the point, I think, is to have enough exposure to others similar to yourself so that you have a chance to find others you can identify with. Once that occurs, you can begin to grow a foundation of emotional stability. Suddenly, there are people that understand you, understand your problems, and can be there for you. Having them helps you to have more confidence in your own identity and who you want to become.

In retrospect, I've been very lucky. My mother always strived to provide my sister and me with an extraordinary education. Every year, since as long as I can remember, she researched all the local and national programs she could find, scrounged and saved up money, and sent us to them all year around. They ranged from extracurricular activities such as Suzuki programs for music, St. Louis area SAGE/FOG gifted workshops, an advanced math program called MEGSSS, and classes for "talented youth" at local community colleges to summer programs such as Northwestern University's CTD program, Purdue University's GERI programs, and Johns Hopkins University's CTY program. There have been so many I can't even remember them all to give you a complete list. The common experience that I had at all of them, though, was that they where all fun environments in which I was free to learn without the threat of grades or ostracization from other kids. At those programs, I was with all these kids who where similar to myself so I didn't have to worry about being myself. Everyone there, both the teachers AND students, were there because they wanted to be. That made a huge difference! The summer boarding programs, especially, were great because there was an additional sense of independence. We had fun learning in the classes during the day and had a blast in the afternoon after classes where over. After experiencing all these programs I started to wonder, "Why can't school be like that?!?!"


It was not until I went to Simon's Rock College that I started to feel comfortable with myself and my peers. Simon's Rock, by the way, is a college for high school age kids. What made that place such a valuable experience to me, though, was not its academics but the people I found there. In fact, I ended up neglecting my studies spending most of my time playing ultimate frisbee, volleyball, and staying up. Consequently, I was kicked out after the first semester and was only there for a short time. However, while I was there, I found a group of people who I could relate to. For the first time in my life I had a circle of good friends who I understood and who understood me.

My parents still believe that sending me there was a huge academic mistake, and I wouldn't sell it as the holy grail of educational solutions, but the truth is that it was a profoundly positive experience which irrevocably changed my life for the better. To this day, many of us who knew each other there are still very good friends and live near each other or at least keep in touch. To me, Simon's Rock's greatest asset is the sense of community it instills in its students. Whenever I meet someone who went to the Rock, there is instantly and automatically a shared bond between us. Just having gone there and experiencing that small community gives us something in common which transcends all of our experiences since leaving there. That sense of community is what I continue to look for no matter where I am because it helps me to get through the day-to-days of life.


I have experienced all the extremes of education on the long journey of my academic career. I have known blissful learning all the way down to complete academic failure and everything in between. In the end, though, it's all the same. Whether or not I had a good or bad academic experience, what lasts to this day is what I got out of the class and the personal experiences I had while I was in those institutions.

When I look at all of my friends today, whom I've met over the years, I know for certain that they are all intelligent. Probably most of them were or could have been considered "gifted" when they where in school. What I have come to realize, though, is that that label no longer has any meaning to us. Together, we represent a diverse set of educational experiences; some of us have gone through private schools, while others have experienced the conventional public schools, and myself, I have under my belt an eclectic mix of institutions and programs. Through it all, we have survived and have emerged from our cocoons of education to find that our paths have converged on the same point. All of us have become well educated adults who work hard, have fun, and try to be socially responsible. Basically, we strive to be good people and decent citizens. So, in the end, no matter how we've been educated, we've ended up in the same place, but what remains and continues is the social bond that we have with one another.

Gifted kids are really no different than any other kid in terms of what they need during their emotional development. While growing up, adults always seemed to be too caught up in my "potential" and never my current state of being. I would plead to the parents and educators out there to pay more attention to how they are growing up instead of how much or how quickly they are learning. Make sure that they at least know that there are others like themselves so they know that they're not alone. They will learn for the rest of their lives, but they can only be children once.

There are numerous options for educating kids now: public school, private school, magnate schools, home schooling, boarding school, etc... If the "perfect" school is not accessible or a practical educational solution, strongly consider clubs, extracurricular programs, or summer programs tailored for gifted/talented youth as good supplemental experiences to their regular education. I think, though, that no matter how you educate a gifted child, it is important to keep in mind that the true goal is to have a healthy, fully functioning member of society at the end of it. I mean, you may end up with the smartest kid in the world, but if they aren't happy and can't fit into society to apply that intelligence, what's the point, right?


========================
Programs Mentioned Above
========================

Center for Talent Development (CTD)
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
http://www.ctd.northwestern.edu/

Center for Talented Youth (CTY)
Johns Hopkins University
http://www.jhu.edu/~gifted/

Center for Youth Education
College of Du Page, Glen Ellyn, IL
http://www.cod.edu/conted/talent.htm

Gifted Education Resource Institute (GERI)
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
http://www.geri.soe.purdue.edu/

Math Education for Gifted Secondary School Students (MEGSSS)
nation wide
http://www.megsss.org/

Supporters and Advocates of Gifted Education (SAGE)
Mt. Prospect, Illinois
http://www.mtprospect.org/sage/

Simon's Rock College of Bard, Great Barrington, MA
"The College for Younger Scholars"
http://www.simons-rock.edu/

Inside Me the Demon Sleeps

[memory]

I remember storming into my father's room after some heated argument. We still lived in the Ferncrest house in St. Louis, but I can't recall exactly what grade I was in or how old I was. Seven or eight, perhaps?

I slammed the door shut and quickly locked it. Seething in fury, I scanned the room for something to throw or destroy--anything that would make my father pay for what he had said to me. I had to destroy something that was meaningful to him, to penetrate deep into his psyche and make him hurt. My eyes locked onto his briefcase.

In a flash, I had it open and begun strewing things about, determined to empty its contents and destroy every bit of organization contained in that case. I worked quickly and unleashed my demon. My only thought: destroy what is important to him.

As I watched the remaining documents flutter to the ground, I took a breath and surveyed my handiwork. When the realization of what I had done swept over me, I began to panic. What had I done?!?!? That instant, I heard a knock on the door. My father's firm voice demanded to know what was going on.

I hastily stuffed all of the papers back into the briefcase while muttering profusely that I was sorry. I did not know what was going to happen after that door opened. But that was not important. What utterly terrified me was not my father nor the probable retribution that would ensue. What terrified me was me. Within me was a beast I couldn't control. It was an evil seed planted in me by my parents, and I hated them for that. How could I rid myself of it and avoid the fate of becoming them?

From that day forward, I swore never to let it out. I learned to tame it, to suppress it, to bottle it up. Strangely, though, I found that the beast gave me strength. As I suffered through the dregs of high school, the beast was the one who kept me alive. When the Dean of Students tried to break me, when my English teacher told me I would end up "flipping burgers" for the rest of my life, the beast protected me from their onslaught. It was my constant companion, my guardian. I still could not trust it, however.

The years went by, and my life began to change--slowly, but for the better. I was no longer an outcast. I finally escaped the clutches of high school. College was liberating. Suddenly, I found myself in California, free to follow my dreams and pursue my own life for once. I did not need my companion anymore.

I thought perhaps that if I were at peace it would leave on its own, for it cannot not survive without conflict. Yes, serenity. That was the answer. So, I isolated myself from strife, hardship... even love. I have not allowed myself to know these things.

And so I wait for its departure. Patiently, I wait...



But I cannot deny it. Inside me the demon sleeps.

Chuck Lorre Productions #8

The is from the vanity card at the end of one of my favorite shows, Dharma & Greg. It made me laugh, so I decided to post it.

I believe that our words have power. Sticks and stones may hurt our bones, but bones heal in a relatively short time, while one critical parent can cripple you forever. With that in mind, let's try a little experiment. As you read the following words notice whether you feel the impulse to smile. Did it work? Did you smile immediately upon reading that? If not, that's okay. Don't get down on yourself. Remember, this is just an experiment. We can try it again. This time feel your lips curl up gently at the corners. You try to fight it, but your mouth seems to have taken on a life of its own. As you continue reading you can't help but notice that you are now smiling like the execs at Paramount after they realized they got a piece of Titanic for chump change. See? The power of words. In this case used for good. If you would like an example of words used for evil, call your mother and tell her you're really starting to make progress in therapy.