how to properly search something in an academic database

otherwise you will probably get this:

I'm Not Really Sure How True This Is

Sometimes I go through a phase where I don't write anything in my blog which is kind of happening right now. I think about writing in my blog a lot but then I can't think of anything to say. Don't worry though, here are some other things I haven't been keeping up with lately:

+ my budget (still haven't completed January yet)
+ my laundry
+ my journal
+ reading books

There is an explanation though and the explanation is that I have ADD. You think the above paragraph is short but it actually took me 11 minutes to write because I had to clean my nails in between every sentence. Is that gross? Sorry. It's my ADD.

I'm not entirely sure how accurate this "diagnosis" is because if I have ADD then probably everyone has ADD, but I am also of the opinion that everyone DOES have ADD and so do I, but because everyone has it then it's not actually a thing (except for people who actually have like real ADD) and therefore we should just start selling Adderall in pharmacies next to the Midol so that everyone can be super stimulated without period cramps and we'll be really productive and stop global debt, poverty, etc.

Oh no wait is that screwed up logic? Am I just talking out of my ass? Hmm. I'm bored.

Identity Crisis #3: Am I White?

This is a better written off shoot of one of my other identity crises. Despite being Chinese/having an "Eastern" background sometimes I still feel like I'm an Orientalist/appropriating other cultures.

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When I look in the mirror I don't see a Chinese person. I don't see a Jewish person or a lesbian. I don't see a boy or a girl. I don't know what I see. I think I see someone who is just scared of being anything.

I was born in Canada to immigrant parents but to immigrant parents who themselves had been raised in Canada. My dad's family moved to Toronto when he was around 10 and my mother's family moved to Montreal when she was around 5. They were educated in Canada and have not lived outside of Canada in over 20 years or maybe ever (since they moved here)?

I was raised in the suburbs in a fairly white neighbourhood in a middle-class family. There was enough money for me to play sports and have toys and have food everyday and also pay medical bills because my mother was ill (though I didn't think of these things when I was a kid). I went to high school and there were, like, 3 black kids. I think there was one other Chinese kid in my grade. The "biggest" minority were the Jewish kids, about 5 or 6 in the sports program my dad had enough money to pay for. Everyone else was white. This is not to say "I'M SO OPPRESSED" this is actually to say I grew up in an extremely white setting -- so much so that I accidentally let slip "other white people" in reference to myself to Laura in February and she asked me if I considered myself white. And I've thought a lot about it since then.

This is the opposite of "I'm oppressed". When I fill out job applications and they ask me if I'm part of a minority group and list a bunch of options, I feel like I'm exploiting something when I mark off "Chinese" (I don't, however, feel bad about marking off "woman"). Being Chinese has, luckily, never limited my options, at least not that I know of. I don't think I've ever not gotten a job for being Chinese, though once I didn't get a job because I don't speak Cantonese.

I've lived my life in white neighbourhoods, gone to school with white kids, played sports with white kids, had as much money as the average white person, have been taught mostly the same values as non-religious white kids. If you went into my house without knowing who it belonged to, you would probably never guess "Chinese". You might guess "Jewish" if you search really hard and find our menorah, but then you would probably be confused by my step-mom's Christmas decorations. The Chinese food we usually eat is take-out. Just like other white people and Jews on New Year's eve (JKKK).

I have had the opportunities that white, middle-class people my age have had. If asked who I identify most with, between a Chinese person from China and a white person from North America, I would choose a white person from North America. But in some situations among non-asians I can't help but feel extremely Chinese. I've gotten weird questions like "Do you have statues of Buddha in your home?", or people will say something about China and might add in a "no offense" in there (what even?) or ask me if I know the answer (I don't). Someone once told my friend that she thought I was "pretty for an Asian". It used to bother me that people assumed I knew things about China because in my mind I was so clearly not Chinese that I just couldn't understand why people would think I would know. I understand better now (but that doesn't make it right). When the subject of China comes up I suddenly feel extremely conscious of looking like a Chinese person.

But I feel like an impostor in a half-Chinese person's body. I know very little about China. Before I took a class on China last semester pretty much all I knew about Chinese culture was that General Tao chicken is not an authentic Chinese dish. I didn't even know which city my family was from or which dialect of Chinese they spoke.

When I look in the mirror I don't see a Chinese person. I definitely don't look Jewish. I don't even consider myself a real Jew, in fact, my half-assed attempts to celebrate major holidays are probably an insult to real religious people. I consider myself more "queer" than "gay" or "bisexual" because I'm still trying to figure myself out, but queer people can look like anyone.

I don't see a white person either though. I know I'm not white, I just have white privileges, for the most part, right now. What does that make me? (Answer: confused).

This Post is Only About #smallearth

Firstly, let me go get some ice cream.

Secondly, as stated in the title, this post is about #smallearth. The definition for #smallearth can be found here, but I will copy and paste it here because you're probably too lazy to click on that link [fyi you should anyway because the next post has pictures of tacky postcards from the philippines and who doesn't want to see that, right].

#smallearth (n) – 1. conceptually, a small-scale model of planet Earth. Although the exact dimensions of #smallearth have never been determined, it is commonly accepted that the planet is small enough that such nonsense as 12-hour time differences simply cannot exist, resulting in a cohesive society of #smallearthlings.

2. a community that is so small, that it is entirely feasible for all or most of its members to somehow come in contact with each other, regardless of actual physical location; a significantly less lame way of saying “small world, eh?,” a community where an unspoken set of rules/tendencies exist.

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#smallearth was created in the middle of the night (for me) while Katrina was on the other side of the world eating lunch, because that's the only way it could have been invented. That's how #smallearth works. #smallearth is the feeling you get when something far away affects you at home ("home". you know. where the heart is). #smallearth is when far away things feel close.

#smallearth is a concept so I don't really think it has physical dimensions. It's as small or as big as you let it and I think it exists because Katrina and I brought it into existence [sidenote: I also think we bring our actual earth into existence by thinking about it and if everyone on the planet stopped (truly) believing in earth it would cease to exist]. That being said, it's smaller than planet earth. Or it's bigger but the people have really long legs so you can cross oceans in two steps, whatever you choose.

#smallearth is a feeling so there can be any number of people on #smallearth at one time and although it would be logical that the ratio of douchebags to awesome people on actual earth would carry over, I hereby declare that there are no douchebags on #smallearth. As one half of the creators of #smallearth I have the power to do this.

#smallearth makes me feel less lonely. 'Cause sometimes I think our planet is just really huge and it bums me out. Then I think that compared to the universe, our planet is a speck of dust and then I feel really tiny and useless and sad.

Like this:

#smallearth makes me feel like this: