Posted 5:54 PM by Andy
This is my first post from Syracuse and suffice it to say, it's been an education. Let me retrace the challenges a California boy had to cope with in adusting to a new environment.

Last Days in LA. The last Thursday I was in LA, I had lunch with AL who gave me a hand-sewn pillowcase. She has my head covered since I'm heavily dependent on the Cal beanie she gave me years back to keep my head warm here. The next day I chatted with JW about her imminent move to Hong Kong to start discipleship training school with Youth With a Mission. JC treated me to lunch that day. Friday night I took a red-eye flight, leaving the City of Angels at 9:30 p.m., landing at New York's JFK airport at 5 a.m. ET, then waited around for my connecting flight to Syracuse at 9:45 a.m.

Lesson number 1, never fly red-eye. You can't sleep sitting erect in the plane, and all attempts at rest in the flight lounge are thwarted by the constant announcements over the loudspeaker and the noise of the other passengers. Finally I rolled into Syracuse around 11 a.m., and was picked up by DF. He is a friend of my cousin so he introduced me to the neighborhood. He explained the vision of his family to revive the Syracuse community both economically in its downtown revamping plans and spiritually through discipleship of key people. His dad had dinner with the chancellor of Syracuse University that night. I resisted the temptation to ask to join them. I've been attending his church, the Syracuse Alliance Church on Sundays.

The first few days I was here I was miserable because this is the worst winter Syracuse has seen in some time. Couple that with my unfamiliarity with the terrain and it is a combination for devastating hardship. After a few days of orienting myself with the bus routes and the buildings on campus and a slight mellowing of the weather, I was more at home. The biggest thing I have to adjust to besides the weather is not having a car again. I'm dependent on EL, an economics PhD candidate for rides to the grocery store and to church. It was as I suspected, with less cultural and other social outlets, I've been reading ahead on my classwork and making my second home at the gym.

Academics. Since most of the smaller policy seminars were full when I was registering, I am taking 3 required courses in microeconomics, statistics, theories of international relations, and a course on international law and organizations. Econ and stat are extremely easy because the professors are catering to the lowest common denominator and explaining concepts like supply and demand curves with painstaking detail. There is more reading for IR and international law. The IR class is more practically oriented with debates and policy advisory panels. So far we've discussed political psychology with the former US presidents serving as examples. We spent some time on the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis to probe the difficulties in group decision making on national issues. I'm the lead on an assignment to present policy recommendations to the World Bank on poverty reduction and economic growth. For international law, the class is structured such that the professor encourages free-flowing debates on intractable questions like the sovereignty of states and the problems of enforceability in international law and international treaties. I've reread Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War on the struggle between Athens and Greece 2000 years before Christ (the first reading was for a class on classic literature in college) and The Twenty Year Crisis on the inter-war period between the World Wars. I'm giving an oral report on Renaissance diplomacy next week. The whole genesis of displomacy from the era of Latin Christendom and its evolution to modern times is fascinating. What are the duties of an ambassador and who is he beholden to, his own prince, the prince whose country he is visiting, or the principle of international peace? There are also interesting issues about diplomatic immunity, i.e. the principle that posits ambassadors are to be protected from harm and harassment during their missions. But what if he engages in conspiracy or acts of espionage? I've opted to write a research paper to fulfill a Asian area requirement. So far I've read some documents on the WTO and international trade conventions, some articles on the history of economic growth in modern China, and a paper on cross-strait relations between Taiwan and China. I'm leaning towards writing about the China-Taiwan relationship because it raises some juicy questions about territorial rights and the inherent tension between self-determination of subject peoples and the state's claim to protect its own existence. So far the synapses are firing so I know I'm into it.

People. Of my class of 75, 72 entered in the fall. So I find myself having to break into established social networks. I introduced myself via email on the second day of class, which prompted a handful of responses. I received an invitation to a house party last Friday where I met about a quarter of my class. I still haven't met a few people that emailed me back welcoming me here. As you might suspect, the class is very international in its makeup. I am the only Chinese guy with another Chinese girl, a few Koreans, a Japanese mafia of a dozen, a few Indians, a Philipino, with the Europeans and Americans filling out the rest of the class. Most of them have either lived or travelled extensively abroad and it looks like that will continue over the next couple terms as we disperse to Washington D.C., New York City, or elsewhere during the summer and beyond. I've met the two other Cal alumni in my program, one has a sociology background and the other guy worked for Intel and Etrade and taught high school too. Outside of my program, there aren't too many Asians on campus either. At church there is a handful of ABCs like KL, who is studying creative writing. My roommate IB is from Jamaica here studying telecommunications. One night we stayed up talking comparative political economy between his country and mine. I miss just being able to chew the fat with people who know me.

Ball. I'm on an co-ed intramural team. The first game this past Thursday I played maybe 12 minutes on a running clock which is not nearly enough. Of course the refs don't call anything so I need to get stronger to take the punishment when I drive to the rack. I have a progressive plan where I should be able to bench-press 225 pounds by the end of my program next May by incrementally increasing the weight I lift 20 pounds every quarter. I can't wait to put on the 45-lb plates, which should happen in about 6 weeks. The ballers are decent here. Today I ran for a few hours and had a couple good games. I had one sweet sequence where I was defending a 3-on-2 break, switched off my man to the shooter, got there just as he released his shot at the top of his jump, snatched it out of his hands, went upcourt, and dished it to my streaking teammate for the bucket. At the main gym where most of the students have access, there are 4 courts but the floor is made up of parquet. It's nothing like the RSF at Cal where there is like 7 courts with multiple levels of competition at most hours of the day. But I make do with what I have. I've attended two games at the Carrier Dome to support our basketball team which has been on the cusp of the top-25 rankings all season. We're 12-2 with an early-season loss to Memphis and a recent loss to Pittsburgh. The primetime player is Carmelo Anthony, a 6-8 forward who will most likely be a top-five pick next year in the pros. Hakim Warrick, a 6-7 swingman, is another versatile scorer. The Dome was rocking when I was there for those games. The atmosphere of college basketball is incredible.

Church. The worship services are fairly mainstream. There is nothing overtly radical about its ceremony or the content of the sermons for me to say it belongs to this or that school of theology or ecumenical tradition. I attended a discpleship meeting last Sunday night led by the pastor. They were meditating on only a few verses for the night which is different from the passage or book-study formats I am used to.

Internship search and career planning. Should I work for the state assembly or a private firm this summer? Should I work on policy issues with the Council of Foreign Relations or learn investment banking? There are literally too many choices that I have to whittle them down to a manageable few. Nevertheless I've sent letters to banks, development banks, and federal councils. I also have to be careful about what to do after graduation because if I were to work for the government, that would preclude me from eligibility for the White House Fellows program. I just found out about this, and the program places 11 to 19 individuals in the White House for a year as assistants to high-level Cabinet officials. They attend policy meetings, congressional hearings, attend to the business of their bosses, and travel to domestic and international conferences of relevance. I think I'll make my bid for this in a few years after I've gained some expertise in private sector development and have demonstrated a commitment to public service.

That's about all there is to my experience so far. I'm already dreaming about visiting SF during spring break to get some West coast time. Nothing against Syracuse, but I just want to spend as little time here as possible. If anything, this experience will toughen me up to pursue my dreams anywhere.