Daffnee

Please don't think I'm an egotistical slug -- I hate writing about myself, and wouldn't do it unless I had to!



***

My formal education began with Chinese classes, once a week, at age four. Each Saturday, I would leave home early with my grandfather to catch the #160 bus into Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside; even though my lessons didn’t start till the afternoon, he wanted to make sure we had enough time after the hour-long bus ride to walk through the streets and have noodles and strong coffee at my favorite Vietnamese restaurant. He was well-known in Chinatown, and I heard countless stories of life in those parts (and others) from his acquaintances over our lunches; in his slow rumble, he would tell me about his community as we walked through Canada’s poorest neighborhood. For those few short years, my grandfather showed me the world he lived in, filled with the people never given their due share in the media or civic life – immigrants, low-income families and victims of the drug trade or mental illness. My parents thought that the only learning I did on those Saturdays happened in a rented church basement with thirty other Chinese children, but it was my grandfather's informal lessons that would be the ones that stayed with me for life.

There weren’t many trips after my grandfather passed away, and I stopped thinking about that community for a long time. When I did finally hear about Chinatown again, it was through news reports that had rewritten the Chinatown of my childhood as a drug-infested war zone. Politicians, police officers and addiction experts argued constantly about what to do with Vancouver’s “drug problem” in the Downtown Eastside, while the residents there rarely held the media spotlight; the predominant opinion in Vancouver was that this was an area to avoid or ignore. To see the state of affairs for myself, I returned to Chinatown on my own after ten years away. The old apartments where my grandfather had played mah-jongg, the butcher’s shops, the grocery stores, and the stretch along East Hastings that the city’s homeless nonetheless call home seemed to have only grown cleaner and quieter. The downtown area’s violent reputation was a fiction, and these people – once neighbors of my grandfather’s – had to live with the consequences of that story.

I know what living under social misconceptions is like. After a complete recovery from an eating disorder, I found that I had to keep convincing prospective employers and schools, families and friends that I am more capable than ever before, simply because I refused to hide my illness. These experiences with social discrimination compelled me to start volunteering for a legal aid society, and change my academic focus to critical theory; since then, my interest in human rights, environmental and health issues have driven all my activities. For example, my graduating essay focuses on the same-sex marriage debate and the use of speech-act theory in Canadian law, I work as a peer educator to help dispel myths surrounding body image, drugs and sexual health, and volunteer with a legal defense fund to give citizens back their rightful say in what happens to their environment. I believe that no one should be judged or denied the chance to have the concerns heard on the basis of irrelevant circumstances, and feel I have a personal investment in enforcing the rights of people caught in such a position.

A legal education at Georgetown University Law Center will provide me both a theoretical understanding of how critical theories are deployed in the law and the practical skills I need to represent the interests of marginalized persons. I’ve made Georgetown my top choice because the law school has everything I was looking for, namely an emphasis on public interest law and critical theory, strong clinical programs, and a location amenable to humanitarian legal work. The skills from my academic training, combined with the knowledge that comes from experience, has given me a firm desire to devote my life to the defence of human rights.

This was too funny to pass up.


-Perfect- You're the perfect girlfriend. Which means you're rare or that you cheated :P You're the kind of chick that can hang out with your boyfriend's friends and be silly. You don't care about presents or about going to fancy placed. Hell, just hang out. You're just happy being around your boyfriend.

I didn't cheat, btw.

I had an old short story-like piece I wrote awhile ago kicking around, and the comment from my last post (and from Dan-o) prompted me to bring it back and brush off the dust. I've tried to reincorporate it into my statement to give a more personal slant to what it is I'm trying to do with my life, but this might just be a little too much catharsis for one week!

There's too much going on this week is what's the problem; I knew this would get me into trouble in the beginning of September, and it's all starting to catch up. I started filling in my day planner using pencil just to save myself the trouble, and the improvement has only been marginal. Housing also took away half my savings a few days ago, which probably contributes to the feeling that everybody's scrabbling for a pound of flesh from yours truly.

In truth, I'm just aggravated I can't manage that French "r" sound with the back of my throat. I can double-tongue on saxophone, but I can't get that rolling growl. I must have scared a few pedestrians while practicing on my way to classes and Gage yesterday.

***

The Wellness Centre at the University of British Columbia occupies a small corner of the Student Union Building basement, and vies for the attention of hungry students alongside a travel agency and hair salon. By the end of my second year, I had grown very familiar with this corridor, and was grateful to the crush of people that hid my constant pacing past the Centre’s doors. The busy lunch hour meant no one saw me pause outside, or see Anne urge me to keep walking. It was true that I had seen almost all the pamphlets lining the yellow walls before, on orientation day where the papers are turned into paper airplanes by uninterested first-year students; two years later, Anne still held the same disdain for nutritional guides, tips for good study habits, and the consequences of healthy relationships. She held herself – and me – above these petty concerns.

The two peer educators inside, waiting in their ring of plastic chairs, thought otherwise. I did, as well. Without Anne’s consent, I had signed both of us up for a nutrition workshop that was advertised in my residence, and she took this betrayal as badly as I feared. In the guise of an extrovert, she apologized for our tardiness while sitting down flamboyantly, and exuded the aura of just another sophomore hoping to keep the “freshman fifteen” at bay for another year. Her outrageous personality chattered on with meaningless comments and grandiose remarks while she did her best to pretend as though she were not the reason we were here, or the one trying to hide her embarrassment at being accused of needing help dealing with food. I was familiar with this behaviour – almost polar opposite to my own – and our constant companionship meant I knew enough to wait for this outburst to wither. She controlled the situation, and I merely sat at attention.

In the meantime, the presentation had progressed through the four food groups, dangerous diets, and we approached the end of the hour. Anne smirked, knowing escape was imminent and another emotional victory was within her grasp; I merely waited for the next slide to be slipped onto the projectors, and for it to say what I could not.

The slide did appear. Anne stiffened in her seat, and fell mercifully silent. I read the title on the screen, and saw the words I had been playing with delicately in the back of my mind. Anorexia nervosa. I couldn’t see her or hear her, but I felt Anne squirm. She hated her full, ugly name, and no one had ever called her that to her face.



Not many people know that I battled with disordered eating. I keep that part of my life private if only to save others from recalling the stereotypes associated with depression and anorexia; I cannot compete with violent media images of skeletal young women subject to hospitalization, heavy medication, force feeding and suicide watches, even if I never came close to any of these in reality. Nothing appears in my medical record beyond a drop in body weight over a few months, not even enough to make me underweight according to the corpus of medical literature, but those few months were enough to rewrite my status in society for life. All of a sudden, I had to consider how schools, prospective employers, family and friends would receive me in the aftermath of a mental illness.

Though I maintained the quality of my academic work and even increased my activities in the community, my thinner body betrayed me. I have never felt so objectified, as my body became the focus of others instead of me, the person. Whether through concern or praise, comments about me invariably were comments about my bodily appearance, and it seemed impossible to leave anorexia behind; even when the disease was gone for good, its stigma was here to stay. Through my frustration, I realized my body was engaging in a dialogue with the society it was immersed in, and I resolved to become an active participant in that exchange.

No one should have to face discrimination because of an irrelevant disability or ailment, and I feel that I have a personal investment in strengthening and enforcing the rights of people in those positions. As I already have an academic interest in critical legal theory – my graduating essay focuses on the use of speech-act theory in Canadian law, specifically with regards to the same-sex marriage debate – I see a legal education at _____ as a way to further my interest in critical theory, see how critical theories are deployed in the guise of the law, and gain the skills I need to confront inequity first-hand as a lawyer.

I may not have known that I would want to devote my life to the practice of law until a year ago, but I believe that all my experiences since then have directed me towards anti-discrimination work. My experience with disordered eating has left only a few pieces of evidence that still exist today: a few pairs of too-tight jeans, some photographs, and a strong desire to work in the field of human rights. We all have just one body in which to live, and I see no reason as to why we should be unduly tied to its limitations.

Well, this is personal statement draft #14. Any comments?

***

I am most definitely not one of those people that have wanted to be a lawyer since the age of five, and even the most cursory glance at my transcript shows what could be charitably called a liberal education. I can clearly recall the August before my second year, when barrages of e-mail were traded between my best friend and I as we agonized over what subject to declare our major in; neither of us had an outstanding aptitude in a single field that set us on an obvious path, and I eventually settled on physics because I had a hunch that biophysics would be the key to finding a cure for cancer, was enamoured with the idea of teaching as a physics professor, and consoled myself with the thought that even if I proved to be a terrible physicist, I could still call myself a rocket scientist. During my second year at university, however, something wholly unexpected prompted me to refocus my gaze from outer space back onto life here on Earth.

Not many people know that I battled disordered eating. I keep that part of my life private if only to save others from recalling the stereotypes associated with depression and anorexia; I cannot compete with violent media images of skeletal young women subject to hospitalization, heavy medication, force feeding and suicide watches, even if I never came close to any of these in reality. Nothing appears in my medical record beyond a drop in body weight over a few months, not even enough to make me underweight according to the corpus of medical literature, but those few months were enough to rewrite my status in society.

Though I maintained the quality of my academic work and even increased my activities in the community, my thinner body betrayed me. I have never felt so objectified, as my body became the focus of others instead of me, the person. Whether through concern or praise, comments about me invariably were comments about my bodily appearance, and it seemed impossible to leave anorexia behind; even when the disease was gone for good, the stigma was here to stay. Through my frustration, I realized my body was engaging in a dialogue with the society it was immersed in, and I resolved to become an active participant in that exchange.

I couldn’t work within this discourse while still in physics, and enrolled as an Honours English student to investigate literature and critical theories of the body. This change in my academics radiated out to all aspects of my life; I began to seriously involve myself in sports to rebuild a healthier relationship with my body, rekindled an old interest in debate and was quickly drawn to volunteering as a peer educator for self-esteem and body image issues. Where I once had problems choosing my courses for the next semester, I found myself with a goal driving all my ambitions and setting a clear career path for me.

No one should have to face discrimination because of an irrelevant disability or illness, and I feel that I have a personal investment in strengthening and enforcing the rights of people in those positions. As I already have an academic interest in critical legal theory – my graduating essay focuses on the use of speech-act theory in Canadian law, specifically with regards to the same-sex marriage debate – I see a legal education at _____ as a way to further my interest in critical theory, see how critical theories are deployed in the guise of the law, and gain the skills I need to confront inequity first-hand as a lawyer.

I may not have known that I would want to devote my life to the practice of law fifteen years ago, but I believe that all my experiences since then have directed me towards anti-discrimination work. My experience with disordered eating has left only a few pieces of evidence that still exist today: a few pairs of too-tight jeans, some photographs, and a strong desire to work in the field of human rights. We all have just one body in which to live, and I see no reason as to why we should be unduly tied to its limitations.

1. West Wing. Aaron Sorkin, have you SEEN the way they're abusing transition shots on your baby?
2. Mental illness. Well, I found out that everybody else's issues are much bigger than mine. Am I a terrible person for feeling better for it? How about for chatting for 2 hours instead of doing homework?
3. Tea. Soya milk goes great with Earl Grey.
4. Personal statement. My unofficial mentor has given me the proverbial "thumbs-up", which roughly translates into "ego-massage" in Daphne-speak!
5. Staples. Charging ridiculous amounts for adhesive plastic, a.k.a glue.
6. Dan. Have you been Photoshop-ing pictures of us? There's an undue amount of praise floating around out there. =)

The cool thing about being both egotistical and a a celebrity nut is that I spend a whole lot of time finding stuff to read about me.

The general consensus among faculty and professionals at UBC is that the Rhodes Committee is comprised of conservative, cigar-smoking old men who toe the status quo. I actually had no problem with this in the beginning, because stuffy European males did establish the canon of my department, after all. My dissent started when I realized that in their eyes -- and probably the eyes of a whole lot of other people in this world -- my body disqualifies me, taints my work, and casts doubt on anything I do.

Fine, Mr. Rhodes. I was anorexic. It lasted about five months, and you'd probably be disappointed to find out that I made a full recovery and want to apply to your scholarship fund. I couldn't do this all openly, of course; the drugs came without a prescription, the faculty change was written away as a private revelation of the sort that university students are prone to, and if people talked, they did it on their own time and behind my back.

I hate that I have to hide that I'm on antidepressants. I hate sticking good people in tough places, like the doctor at the walk-in clinic where I got my certificate of health; I hate having to leave a paper trail as carefully as possible so I don't carry the stigma of mental illness wherever I go (or apply). I hate being prejudged, and I hate the fact that I'm not even more; it's like I'm shirking some perverse responsibility. Despite my skin, my gender, anything else about me, nothing has ever trapped me as much as this little aspect of my health. If this is what being queer is like, I have not given enough credit to the gay rights movement or the feminists.

No matter how well I perform, that will always stain everything I do. A doctor lied for me today. He knew about the drugs, and the possibility of past depression. I don't know if he knew he was lying -- did he suspect, or plan this? -- but he made it very clear how strong the stigma of depression is in these parts; he was eager, if anything, to give me the documents I needed to live a productive, normal life. I'm probably over-analyzing this, thanks to those ethics chats we've been having in my Academic Integrity presentations, but I can't shake my conscience on this one. If I can't play ball according to the rules, and playing ball with my own rules will get me nowhere, what the heck am I supposed to do with this ball I paid $50 for?

My experience with depression and anorexia shapes everything I want to do, and everything I find worth doing. Being a peer educator isn't just having a cool place to heat my lunch, it's one of the few ways I can fight back against everything driving women (children!) down that path and that bloody stigma surrounding mental health. This is start to write like a personal statement, which isn't surprising. (I'm already on draft 13, and am no close to applying to law school than I was before. Anyone with recommendations for schools with strong human rights and constituational law programmes, please post!)

The pill I take in the morning is so small, I can swallow it without water or even saliva. I don't really think I need it, but I keep with it because I know what could happen if I stop prematurely. I'll turn into this other-me, this person who cannot live with people but is even worse with herself. It's not me, but if the secret's out -- and I did try to "out" it today -- it will be the me others see. It's not right, and it's not fair.

But then again, life isn't fair, is it?