Time to start this little experiment...I know it's a little counter-intuitive to be starting at the end of the week, but I just couldn't wait! Anyways, come on into the ivory tower and make yourself at home. Pop your collars and lower your expectations.
0030 After a roommate movie night, it's time for a little reading before bed. Tonight's assignment is Surprise, Security, and the American Experience by John Lewis Gaddis. Nothing like a little Bush Doctrine to sweeten my dreams. Cough.
0100 Bedtime! The usual routine: planning out the next day while I brush my teeth, drinking a ton of water, and then a set of pushups to tire me out :)
1030 Wake up and get moving -- I have to be out the door in twenty minutes for Chinatown ESL, a program run by Harvard students that provides free English classes to Chinese senior citizens. (fyi the name is a little misleading -- the classes take place at Harvard, and almost none of the students actually live in Chinatown)
1100 It's the last class of the semester, so we just have fun and review. We start off with vocab jeopardy, and then I open it up for the students' questions ("What does 'all set' mean?" "How do you say, "I lost my Senior ID and need a new one?'"). We celebrate the end of the school year with an incredible potluck that includes noodles, turnip cakes, tea eggs, and six kinds of dumplings. They insist that I take home all the leftovers, as well as photos of our class and newspaper clippings about the tiger mom...
1300 Feasting makes me tired, and I'm just not feeling the productivity today. I finish up the Gaddis reading, laze around, and then make myself feel better about lazing around by doing laundry. After conferring with my classmates, I realized that I'm not the only person who lives by the Underwear Principle: you know it's time for laundry when you're trotting out your cutest undies...under your gym clothes. I may or may not have tried to put my dirty laundry in a dryer today, and also may or may not have had to go back to my room after I forgot detergent. Don't judge, it's been a while.
1700 Roommate and I dragged our butts outside for a huge exercise compromise. Ran twenty minutes through urban Cambridge (me), twenty minutes back along The River (her), did a weight workout (me), abs (both), elliptical (ALL her). I can't do machines. I run faster away from the treadmill than I do on it. Also, at least when I wipe out on my face on the sidewalk, I get bloody wounds and people feel bad for me.
2030 Back in the room after dinner in our historic dining hall, Annenberg, which has slightly higher security than Guantanamo Bay. Seriously, they have bouncers who will throw people out the door, and they profile Asian kids who look like tourists. Honestly, I don't really see the appeal. I think it's supposed to look like Hogwarts and fill us with awe, but the stained glass portraits of Chaucer and Milton just don't really do it for me. Am I supposed to worship them or something? Whatever, Harvard, just keep on trying to be Oxford. Which is the actual Hogwarts. I understand.
2153 Posting on my blog like a social outcast. Hitting "publish" and then cracking down. I need to get stuff done today! Tomorrow's Yardfest -- Harvard's big spring concert -- and I definitely don't plan on working. Bye now, sorry my life is boring!
0100 Rescue missions, getting everyone back where they belong: unspoken duty of the night off
0030 After a roommate movie night, it's time for a little reading before bed. Tonight's assignment is Surprise, Security, and the American Experience by John Lewis Gaddis. Nothing like a little Bush Doctrine to sweeten my dreams. Cough.
0100 Bedtime! The usual routine: planning out the next day while I brush my teeth, drinking a ton of water, and then a set of pushups to tire me out :)
1030 Wake up and get moving -- I have to be out the door in twenty minutes for Chinatown ESL, a program run by Harvard students that provides free English classes to Chinese senior citizens. (fyi the name is a little misleading -- the classes take place at Harvard, and almost none of the students actually live in Chinatown)
1100 It's the last class of the semester, so we just have fun and review. We start off with vocab jeopardy, and then I open it up for the students' questions ("What does 'all set' mean?" "How do you say, "I lost my Senior ID and need a new one?'"). We celebrate the end of the school year with an incredible potluck that includes noodles, turnip cakes, tea eggs, and six kinds of dumplings. They insist that I take home all the leftovers, as well as photos of our class and newspaper clippings about the tiger mom...
1700 Roommate and I dragged our butts outside for a huge exercise compromise. Ran twenty minutes through urban Cambridge (me), twenty minutes back along The River (her), did a weight workout (me), abs (both), elliptical (ALL her). I can't do machines. I run faster away from the treadmill than I do on it. Also, at least when I wipe out on my face on the sidewalk, I get bloody wounds and people feel bad for me.
2030 Back in the room after dinner in our historic dining hall, Annenberg, which has slightly higher security than Guantanamo Bay. Seriously, they have bouncers who will throw people out the door, and they profile Asian kids who look like tourists. Honestly, I don't really see the appeal. I think it's supposed to look like Hogwarts and fill us with awe, but the stained glass portraits of Chaucer and Milton just don't really do it for me. Am I supposed to worship them or something? Whatever, Harvard, just keep on trying to be Oxford. Which is the actual Hogwarts. I understand.
2153 Posting on my blog like a social outcast. Hitting "publish" and then cracking down. I need to get stuff done today! Tomorrow's Yardfest -- Harvard's big spring concert -- and I definitely don't plan on working. Bye now, sorry my life is boring!
0100 Rescue missions, getting everyone back where they belong: unspoken duty of the night off
jealous that you get to tutor Chinese/American seniors. I taught in a similar program and loved it. Loved the women I taught, mostly Hispanic and all with a wealth of life experience to share. But we never had the food spread that you did today! Wow!
ReplyDeleteHa. Boring? Not likely.
ReplyDeleteOmg Sophia, I LOVE THIS! thank you for sharing a bit more about your college life at Harvard with us. And it's very nice to see that you're volunteering to work with senior citizens. It's always good to give to the community in different ways.
ReplyDeletewondering if you're a part of any student government at Harvard?
What?...
ReplyDeleteomg, I love this ! keep posting ! do you get paid for teaching those women or is it voluntary? anyway it's a cool thing to do !
ReplyDeletelove from freiburg
(I start to really like this as my signature, maybe because I have always worshipped alliterations ....)
Sophia, this is awesome! Exactly what I was hoping to see, definitely do more of these! However, I do hope you end up doing more school work over the next couple of days... I need tiger cub inspiration to do my own work.
ReplyDeleteWhoa, did your roommates come back late at night after partying and fall asleep on the floor in their dresses? I say leave them where they are next time and take pictures. Then blackmail them into doing stuff for you. Missed opportunity, Sophia. You gotta be a go-getter in this life and hold all your friends by their balls at all times.
ReplyDeleteYou singlehandedly teach English to 10 Chinese people?? That's amazing. I wish I could work as hard as you do so I could be as great a person as you.
ReplyDeleteAlso, when do you plan to make up your mind about your major? lol Could you post some of your thoughts about the fields that interest you? I mean, you must have narrowed down the number of choices, so it'd be interesting to see which subjects interest you more than others in general.
maybe this is one of the reasons sophia is reluctant to post more frequently or post more detailed entries? all these endless personal questions about her boyfriend (she wrote a whole post asking ppl to give her some privacy and clearly she isn't obligated to talk about personal things like that on here, esp. not where a lot of trolls and judgmental strangers visit) and her major (she also wrote a whole post about how she hasn't decided on her major yet, and i would personally want to eat ppl too if they kept asking me endlessly, esp. if i had another whole year to decide and i wanted to make sure i made the right decision.) JEEZ. ppl, read sophia's blog posts and answers to previous comments before asking the same question over and over again!
DeleteNi Hao Kai Lan is the only Chinese I ever learned. PLEASE post a post that teaches us a little chinese!
ReplyDeleteHey Sophia, love this post and your blog! What ever happened to Lulu's tumblr, though? I never got to view it because it's just a blank. :/ Is this just my computer acting up or...?
ReplyDeleteIt's at http://luluchuarubenfeld.tumblr.com/
Deletetea eggs!! i've got to try that, whatever they are! and haha, do you do most of your working out on the weekends? i don't like machines either. oh and tell us more about the rescue missions ;) love your blog :)
ReplyDeletemargaret
Do you always sleep at 1:00 am? What time do you get up when you have classes?
ReplyDeleteWow thanks for this Sophia!
ReplyDeleteYou may think your day sounded boring, but it sounded great to me.
Still living at home, many days I am simply too lazy to exercise or hang at uni - instead of movies with roommates and studying on campus I'm doing a lot of things at home.
So what you've described sounds exactly like how I'd want to live on campus!
Looking forward to the next one! :)
Ahhh, Annenberg is so gorgeous!! I hope you had fun at Yardfest! :)
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed really this blog post. From your mum’s book, I sort of imagined that your life on a typical Saturday would be like:
ReplyDelete• Saturday morning: 3 solid hours of music lessons
• Saturday afternoon: Homework, study and more music practice. Work, work and more work. Whiplash. More work.
• Saturday evening: Get all prettied up and attend some ritzy event as a result of the recognition from your mum’s book or one of those glamorous Harvard parties you profiled in your last blog.
The reason why I love this blog post, is because it’s reassuring to know that although the Tiger Cub works hard for her success, she gives herself a break too. People take inspiration from you, and you’ve just shown them it’s okay not to be a workaholic.
It is kind of nice to know that you spend your Friday evenings watching DVDs with your roomies, and Saturday afternoon lounging around and doing laundry. And that you don’t start cracking into your study until 10pm on Saturday – after dinner and after a blog post entry. And you still take time to head out at midnight to rescue someone (from a fire?). You think your daily life is boring, I think it’s reassuring that you’re just an ordinary person who spends their Saturday just like anyone else.
I find it enjoyable that you do so much community service and still take time out for yourself. It's important to value yourself and not forget that in the end, you are the only you you've got (one of my favorite quotes). And the food spread looks divine! I wish I could have had even half of that; literally had my mouth watering after seeing it!
ReplyDeleteHaha..Enjoy reading this blog! Your writings are quite humourous at times! I actually attend the real "Hogwarts" right now aka Oxford right now but I still very much prefer Harvard over Oxford!!
ReplyDeleteKeep it up!
x
Funny, didn't know that about dining halls at Hahvahd... at Stanford people literally just waltz in, it's all you can eat and kind of works on the honor system - as in if you look remotely like a student, and if they think you've already swiped in, nobody cares.
ReplyDeleteI love this everyday thing :)
ReplyDeletehi sophia, i just wanted to let you know that my 9-year-old sister (she's significantly younger than me lol) surprised all of us recently by randomly mentioning that she wants to be "tiger cub" for halloween 2012. i asked her if she wants to be "sophia, the older tiger cub" or "lulu, the younger tiger cub" and she exclaimed almost instantly, "tiger sophia!!" ... anyway, i'd appreciate it if you mass produced sophia chua-rubenfeld halloween costumes for halloween this year. i'd hate to disappoint my sister. LOL if not, we'll just stick with a tiger outfit nbd.
ReplyDeleteanyway, i'd like to say that i find the open-mindedness, curiosity, and vivacity/energy with which you seem to approach life every day particularly inspiring myself! :D it seems like you are very stressed out lately- i hope that you are still finding time to unwind a bit every day and good luck with your papers and exams!
hey i want a tiger sophia costume for halloween this year too...
Deletealso, are you getting to go to the time 100 party in nyc today with your mom this year as well? :) that'd be super cool! at the same time i know you have chinese projects to finish and such too
you should read this when you have time!
ReplyDeletehttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304811304577366332400453796.html
some of them are pretty funny and some of them are just ridiculous lol
Hi Sophia!
ReplyDeleteMaybe I shouldn't be saying this during finals week when you're probably highly caffeinated, stressed, and spending all day in the library, but I just wanted to say that overall I find it most inspiring that you're able to not take yourself so seriously all the time while still being serious about the things that tiger cubs are serious about. It's refreshing that you can step back from hectic classes from time to time and enjoy spending time at dinner discussing the Game of Thrones with your friends, instead of stressing everyone out by whining all day about psets and how much homework there is.
Most of all, I think it's inspiring how even though even you have uncertainties about your future, life in general, and your identity, you don't seem to be constantly hyperventilating about it and demoralizing to be around, and I think it's a measure of your mental reserve and strength (take that, darn critics who say tiger parenting only produces mentally unstable kids) that you are okay with not being completely certain about everything and seem to take it all in stride, one step at a time and really taking the time to explore different sides to yourself and remaining open-minded. I'm sure your mom has this trait too, but I was struck by how you mentioned last year that your dad has the ability to calmly and rationally think things through and make decisions and solve puzzles even when everyone else is freaking out about something. I think you inherited this trait much more than you may think! Even though you're a perfectionist, I also can't imagine you having a mental breakdown if things don't go completely perfectly- I feel like despite the fact that you may not know yourself fully well yet, I can tell that you do have a strong identity outside of schoolwork and piano, and I can see you rationally evaluating a mistake you may have made or evaluating how you can improve instead of mentally breaking down, which I feel actually harms many tiger cubs much more than simply not having had everything go perfectly in the first place. I also think that the fact that you can step back and make fun of yourself (your tweet a couple of months ago comparing your gorgeous face to a dog's made me lol!) and be self-deprecating also shows how strong and self-confident you are because I've noticed that sometimes the most arrogant people are actually the most insecure. Anyway, you're truly a joy to this world in every possible way, don't you ever forget that!! Best of luck with your finals and I hope that you get to relax and sleep a lot afterward!!