2001-04-03 - 6:27 p.m.
#35: No Need for Worthless Contributions
Note to self: Nooooooo! The sun has come and ruined everything! Damn you, sun! Why must you drive away the cloudy, stormy days of happiness I was looking so forward to when winter comes? Why sun, WHY? Have you no compassion for the poor defenceless humans that wander and bake under your gaze? *sobs* Now I have to put away my illegal trader outfit for another time.
There are some people who genuinely enjoy working with other people. People who give thoughtful contributions to a group setting, and are able to take contributions from that same group. People who are able to work under their own steam to advance the position of the groups work, and generally make it better for it. People who, in spite of the troubles that may afflict the group due to the breakdown in communication (or lack thereof), are able to work through those problems and emerge with a solution that can be appreciated by the entire group.
And then there are people like me. Stupid people.
People who half heartedly work with other people because it's part of the curriculum. People who are unable to make any contributions to the group because they're not technically savvy enough to know anything. People who say they'll do reserach on the things they don't know and then just don't at all. People who can't speak the language of their ethnic makeup and sit in the sidelines, hoping that the occasional word will be in English, or at least SOUNDS like English. God.
My uselessness to the group design project has been highlighted quite nicely today when we went through a compulsary group progress oral report and demonstration. I didn't really want to be there, but I guess I had to front up that I was doing absolutely nothing, sometime. And I was the only one. My partner had actually progressed quite a bit further along on (what was meant to be) our side of the project, so it appeared he wasn't quite as dumbfounded by the C programming as I was. So it appeared. Turns out all he did was a simple getchar and fprint program which is just a simple text menu program which does absolutely nothing at all except print more menu options on screen when you press a key. Even I could have done that. Well, with a little help. But I didn't, and he did, and he had something to contribute to the meeting while I sat off to one side, trying to make myself as small as possible so that the interviewer wouldn't notice my existance. Like I was that lucky.
So when it came down to my turn to demonstrate my nothing, the lecturer/interviewer was clearly not impressed. I said I'd try to catch up with the work but I'm really fighting an uphill battle at this point, considering the amount of reading I have to do and what I really have to do on my own. It's my own damn fault for being so far behind, but it doesn't really help that my entire group is Chinese. Now you may be thinking, "But YOU'RE Chinese", and you would be correct. A Malaysian born and bred Chinese who's lived over a half of his lifetime in his west with no command over any of the Chinese dialects except for Hokkien; and that I can only listen to, not communicate with.
So when the rest of the group starts speaking in Cantonese, I just sit there and nod for a while, hoping that they'll occasionally remember that I'm practically the ABC here. Well they didn't remember after the demonstration, picking up a conversation with another group that had just finished their demonstration; probably comparing notes and ripping off each others ideas. I tapped the shoulder of the one who I was supposed to be partnered with and said I'd try emailing later for another group meeting; but he gently pointed out that such a group meeting would be useless anyway, since the Universitys computers didn't support compiling in C. He had to work from his home computer for that, so while he was doing that, I could do another part of the project. Which is, incidentally, a solo effort. Fair enough, I guess. I wasn't really doing much as a "productive group member", so I may as well try running things on my own and then show up at the final demonstration with my side of the project and report.
I wish I'd stayed in the group I was in before I (stupidly) agreed to be moved from that one to this one for the convenience of two people who wanted to stay in the same group. That one had a decent ethnic mix, two chinese, one vietnamese and a pakistani, and only one language which we would all understand and communicate in simultaneously: English. I wish I wasn't Chinese sometimes.... There's just so many different social requirements for being a real Chinese and I'm like, as far removed from it as you can get without being an ABC. Heck, I don't even dye my hair.... Now THAT'S completely un-Asian-like, doncha know? Heh.
But anyway, on the plus side: I asked my mother today if she would mind the AAC having an unofficial gathering at our house some time and she said no. At first, I thought she meant "No, they can't come.", but hip hip hoorah and boil my socks in badger sweat! She meant the other definiton of "No"! That is to say, "Yes, they can". Ohhh, jolly good! I'm planning to have a little "Hong Kong Action Cinema" Marathon sometime after a couple of members expressed interest. I'll bring it up later on and hopefully lots and lots of people will attend, yay! ^_^ Or at least 3. Yes. I'll have to bring the subject up at the next meeting....
Well, didn't take much to change my depressed mood. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go away and stare at a blank space of wall for an hour or so. Bye!
