Don't be a hard rock when you really are a GEM.

a. If you play a sport for the University of Illinois where you get to record a video for your bio page, chances are I've seen it. (This means you, soccer and volleyball.) I am anxiously awaiting the 2010-2011 videos; I hope they are as sweet as they were this year, and I hope Jackie Wolfe continues to be adorable (shouldn't be too hard, love her). I wish Kevin Hambly had a video *sigh*.

In other news, Margaret and I have discovered a new favorite Illini to add to my already humongous list: Julie "Juice" Ewing (representing 5'3 HEEEEEEEY).

WHAT UP.
(Possibly the best part of her video is that you find out her roommate was Keelin Bourne, who is 6'5. Talk about an odd couple of roommates.)
b. If you think you are a good dancer, then you clearly have not seen this video. I'm just saying that you don't have moves like that. You don't. (I'm warning you, it's pretty secs-sual).
c. UConn Count: 71. Broke their own record for consecutive wins by an NCAA women's team (70 from '01-'03). I have two words: Tina. Charles. Tina Freakin' Charles. 16 points, 4 blocks, 17 rebounds -- WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT?! Forget 88 wins in a row, how about back to back champions? (But I'm really gonna need Caroline Doty to be okay ...)
d. Big Ten Tournament time ... you know what that means: MARCH MADNESS IS ALMOST HERE. The two seasons I live for: March Madness and Shammy Season. Both here at the same time. Heavens to Betsy. On a related note, please note that Bill Cole is my favorite player on the men's team. Ohhh Bill.
e. This is completely unrelated to everything, but this really grinds my gears. Do people who insert the words "like" and "um" between EVERY word they say realize how stupid they sound? I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a douche, but you sound like you just learned how to speak yesterday. I don't care what it is you're talking about, you could be talking about Said's Orientalism or some MCB shit for all I know, but you still sound ridiculous when every other word you say is "like" or "um" or "you know". It's the WORST. These people need to stop raising their hands in class, gee willickers. (What up Claire Dunphy.)
f. If you are on the University of Illinois' men's rugby team, we checked the SHIT out of you on Wednesday night, and we'll probably do it again. Just saying. Man of the Match, Mullet Man, Ripped Cutoff Guy, Yellow Cleats, Blue Shorts, Big Angry Guy, Little Nugget, Bill Nye the Science Guy ... what up. I have this best friend, her name is Sarah ("'S' is for 'Sarah'..."), and I think you all would really, really like her. She is hell of thirsty, and enjoys cutoffs and short shorts. Soooooo ... a match made in heaven, wouldn't you say?
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Ok, that was ridiculous, I apologize. But I had a lot of random thoughts. In any case, today is International Women's Day, a day to celebrate the achievements of women. I want to take a moment and put up a post to show my appreciation for all the intelligent, talented, beautiful, strong, and AMAZING women there are in the world.

To be clear, this isn't a man-hating post (because people claim I'm a man-hater ... I'm not, it's really not my fault that you're not Kevin Hambly or Jim Halpert or Sgt. Tibs. This Tibs, not that one. To be sure, there are dudes who are the worst and I'll hate on you without apology, for sure, but I'm glad you're not all like that.)

One woman I really, really want to give a shout out to is my mom. Man, we get in crazy fights and we don't agree on a lot of things, but I love her to death. My mom has shown me what it means to be a strong woman. She is so fucking incredible. She's a nuclear engineer with Exelon, and sometimes I feel like a total failure when I think of her accomplishments in life. She got her BS and her Masters in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Illinois in something ridiculous like 3 years or 3.5 years or whatever. She's got a crazy stressful job -- she's the one who crunches the numbers to make sure nuclear plants are safe, and she has to carry a beeper on her at all times just in case something happens. She has a hard hat and everything! But it's what she does at home that truly astounds me. My mom works a full 8-9 hour day -- gets up at 5am, comes home at 6pm, and then takes care of my sister, who is autistic and is extremely low-functioning. If my sister doesn't go to bed until 4am, my mom is up with her. If my sister doesn't sleep at all, then my mom doesn't sleep at all. And she'll still go to work the next day and do her thing. Even meals aren't time off. My mom has to feed my sister and try to eat herself. My mom doesn't get a day off, she doesn't get down time. It's work and family, and that's it for her. The most down time she gets is maybe going to buy groceries on her own, if you really want to call that "alone time". Whenever I need to talk to someone, it's always my mom first. I tell her almost everything, and I don't mean to be totally corny but she really is one of my best friends. I admire her so much; she's so strong and just a completely unbelievable woman. I seriously cried a little writing this, I love my mom.




My mom was my role model growing up. I hope not all Asian American girls and their moms are all Joy Luck Club about it, because there aren't enough Asian American role models for girls out there, and Asian American role models in general, really. I'm tired of turning on the television and seeing meek lotus blossoms, subservient and passive, and I'm also tired of seeing hypersexual, heartless dragon ladies. (What up, Shimizu? Celine, not Jenny.) Racial identity is a SPECTRUM, not a fixed binary. To be sure, there are people who fit the stereotype, but not everyone does. This isn't the post for it, but my heart is endlessly joyful for teams like DTB, which embrace racial diversity and celebrating our heritage and culture. I hell of put on for that!

What would a post on my role models be without talking about female athletes? I look up to a LOT of female athletes for sure, like Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Wilma Rudolph, Sheryl Swoopes and Mia Hamm and the US women's soccer team and Lisa Fernandez for what they've done for girls like me, but I guess I'll just talk about three in particular that have meant a lot to me personally.

UConn Women's Basketball
I talk about UConn all the time. I think it's because they're not just role models on the court, but off the court as well. Off the court, they are some of the friendliest people I have ever met. I have been to numerous UConn games and I've approached numerous players for chats and autographs, and they are always gracious with their time and always very approachable and friendly. They're good kids who don't get in trouble. They know they're setting an example for all the little girls and 21-year-old little girls at heart that look up to them. On the court, they just play good, clean basketball. They play hard every single play of the game, and they're never satisfied or complacent. They're always hungry, always striving to get better. They stress team basketball and doing all the little things right. They're unselfish, and they're all the type of players to throw their bodies to the floor for loose balls. Some of my favorite UConn players have always been the tough, scrappy ones, like Shea Ralph, Mel Thomas, and now Caroline Doty. I have always tried to model myself after those players in any sport I've played. They're all heart, all hustle. They're in the middle of every loose ball scramble, they're the ones diving all over the place for loose balls, they're the ones forcing held ball situations. They're the ones with the floor burns, with the bruises, with the cuts and nicks. They're not always the best athletes on the court, not always the fastest or the tallest, but they work the hardest. They're tough and they don't quit until the buzzer goes off and the game's over. I have so much respect for those kinds of players.

Then there are those UConn players who rack up the accolades and continue to just play unselfish, team basketball, like Maya Moore, Tina Charles, Sue Bird, and Diana Taurasi. And then there are those unsung heroes who battle hard in practice, battle hard in games, and just do all the little things right without grabbing all the headlines for it, like Willnett Crockett, Tamika Williams, Morgan Valley, and Maria Conlon. I look up to all the UConn players, actually, and I think they set a great example for kids to follow, regardless of whether or not they play basketball.

[EDIT: 3/9/10, 12:20am
Saw a status update by someone I knew from high school who commented that all the UConn girls look like men ... interesting. (Low key, I would definitely holler at Caroline Doty. Just saying.)

I think it's an unbelievably immature thing to say that just because a woman is muscular and plays a contact sport (and very well, at that), she's automatically a man. It leads me to something I've been wanting to write about for a long time now -- why is it that we don't see female athletes as feminine? Sure, everyone agrees that athletes like Anna Kournikova and Kerry Walsh and Misty May-Treanor are feminine. But what about athletes like Ogonna Nnamani, or Tina Charles, or Abby Wambach? Just because these women don't wear bikinis when they play or they don't pose for Playboy doesn't make them any less feminine. I think they are completely incredible women who happen to also have amazing, strong bodies, and they're dominant in their respective sports. Being a woman has nothing to do with the size of your breasts or how much you show them. I am most comfortable when I'm in a cut-off, my playing cap, and a pair of shorts, but it doesn't make me any less of a woman because I'm not running around with my (clean) hair flowing, only in my sports bra and booty shorts (which I do own, actually). To each her own.

The best part is that he's probably salty because any and all of those girls would whoop his ass at basketball. Plus none of them would ever go out with him. A real man's not intimidated by a woman's strength and a woman's talent. Suck it, douche.

I didn't want this post to be about hating, I wanted it to be about praising the accolades of those that came before us ... but I guess we still have a long way to go, ladies.

there'll always be haters, that's the way it is
hater suckers marry hater bitches and have hater kids
/EDIT]

Paula Radcliffe
Paula Radcliffe is one of the best female marathon runners in the world, and she has won multiple high-profile marathons (London 3X, Chicago, New York 2X, World Championships). She holds the world record time for the marathon and the 10K. She had a baby and then came back that year to win the New York Marathon, proving that you can be a world class athlete and a mother. I look up to her even more because she has asthma AND she's a badass runner.

Katie Douglas
For a long time, I was a huge Purdue fan because I went to a summer school there and totally thought I'd end up going there. I didn't, but I stayed a Boilers fan for a while. Katie Douglas was my favorite player on the women's team. Katie stands out to me not only because of her talent, but because of her strength. She lost both her parents to cancer while she was still in college, her dad in '97 and her mom in 2000. But she didn't drop out and quit basketball, which is probably what I would have done. She stuck with it, and won a National Championship in 1999, and took her team to the Championship game in 2001. She's a scrappy, tough ball player, and she's a pretty tough one off the court too.


Then of course there are the women who influenced me politically, Sandra Day O'Connor and Eleanor Roosevelt. Sandra Day O'Connor was the reason I wanted to go to Stanford Law School. (And the weather too, I guess.) She went from being snubbed by California law firms for being a woman to becoming the first female member of the Supreme Court. Badass. Eleanor Roosevelt emerged from a shitty home situation to become the "First Lady of the World". She wasn't the typical "Arm Candy and Support My Husband" First Lady like so many of them are -- she went out on her own and made a difference both domestically and internationally for women's and human rights. You can stay seated, FDR.

And just to keep this ultimate-relevant, I also wanted to bring attention to people like Gwen Ambler, with her creation of icultimate, and The Legion of Ballers, and all the great women's tournaments they put on. They've done a lot to bring attention to and create buzz for the women's game. They're working to create a true community for women's ultimate players -- one where we can compete at the highest level and still foster great friendships. It's a community where we can openly communicate with one another and share resources, and truly support each other.

I know the Used to Be Cool Party was like two weeks ago, but Girl Power.
What up.

Just wanted to holler at all the ladies out there.
Happy International Women's Day.