The American Way

My amount of work is exponentially increasing at the rate of people wearing shorts on campus (yes, we hit the 50's this week). I'm not going to lie, I've been nodding my head a lot during lectures due to lack of sleep but I'm enjoying the stress. It's good stress! I'm stressed physically but not mentally. I can confidently say this because our guest speaker for symposium, Sam Viviano, who by the way is the Art Director for MAD Magazine, told us about how he has friends who are 88 years old and still illustrating their butts off. Reminded me once again that I am not working to live, but living to work.

I get really excited whenever I find similar themes or common threads in my different classes. Currently, I am working on an illustration piece for A-Line (Asian-American magazine on campus) about how Bollywood is becoming image conscious. Indian women in Mumbai are losing significant weight to look more westernized. They have shows such as "India's Next Top Model," which try to model after America's image of women and their culture. To me, it makes no sense because India is big on modesty and highly values tradition. The idea of diversity is not to force everyone to be the same but to appreciate the differences between people and cultures. The beauty of Indian figures is that they tend to be more voluptuous and have all the right curves. It saddens me that women harm themselves in order to look like someone or something else. When I think about Bollywood, I picture big and graceful contours, accessorized with gems and sheers of vivid colors. To contradict this idea, I'll probably illustrate a group of Bollywood dancers with sharp, jagged bodies that can barely hold up their saris.

It's interesting because in my psychology class, we had to read an article called, "The Americanization of Mental Illness." The first two pages talks about a Chinese doctor who thought that anorexia was just an American illness but he realized how many Chinese women were starting to drastically lose weight and become more obsessed with images from the media. Two questions came in mind: Is China adapting to western illnesses? and, Were Chinese women getting diagnosed according to the AMERICAN standards?

This article and the article from A-Line interested me a lot. Not that both articles are totally related, but it really made me think about how much America influences other nations and cultures-- not just through images but through the way they perceive.
shrugs.


-g

#1

I am honored to have been a part of Syracuse University for the past four years. Why? One word:

Basketball.

Believe it or not, in high school, I used to be a cheerleader. Yeah, if you know me, my sarcasm and my awkwardness, it's really hard to believe that I was involved in such sport. To be honest, I was in love with all of the basketball players in high school. Jericho basketball team was #1 in the county when I was a cheerleaders so it's pretty exciting to experience that again in college. Of course,hands down high school basketball is nothing compared to college basketball. On contrary, my high school football team was ranked 2nd to last in county. Sound familiar?

February 27, 2010 was an epic day.

Our Syracuse basketball team played a crucial game against Villanova. Tickets were sold out INSTANTLY! There were 34,616 fans at the Carrier Dome and of course thousands of more TV's turned to ESPN. In the midst of post-snow storm, people were more than eager to go to the game. I saw people who made igloos in order to have a place to wait for the game. Villanova has always been a tough team to play. It was a perfect game to watch because they were both very good teams and our boys put so much into defense. We ended up killing Nova and it was GREAT! I heard the crowd from South campus! With Purdue losing on Sunday, we are now ranked #1. CHYEA BABY!

I went to my last Syracuse Basketball game yesterday. It was very bitter sweet. We said our farewells to our senior starters, Arinze Onuaku and Andy Rautins. I am so proud of them. They played a GREAT season!

My professor, John Thompson gave us Seniors a lecture about going to a game before graduating. He was saying how that's the beauty of going to a University rather than an art college. There are so many extracurricular activities and events going on. There is nothing bad about other art schools but I concur with John in that if you come to university, it's probably because it was set apart from other schools. You might as well be a part of the opportunities here.

Gina's Advice:

If you are an incoming freshman, BUY BASKETBALL SEASON TICKETS. (Football is optional... it's not my preference though the package deal is pretty good). Freshman year is the year to explore. Workload my be harder than high school but freshman year is the most flexible year. It is up to you to get season tickets after freshman year but at least you experience it ahead of time. As a senior, I couldn't make it to many of the basketball games because I became too busy and had bigger priorities. Don't be the senior that says, "wow I wish I went to more throughout my years here." I wish I went to more games but I don't have too many regrets because I've been to numerous games in the past. IT IS WORTH IT.



I AM PROUD TO BE AN ORANGEWOMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


-g