Rant of the Exiles

The New York times ran an article covering a study about how the academic gender gap starts later in life for Asian American boys. The academic gender gap means, on average, girls outperform boys in school. The gap starts as early as kindergarten and continues into college. However, there’s one exception: Asian American boys keep up with Asian American girls throughout elementary and then begin to lag as a group during adolescence. The article explains: "[Boys] get the message that doing well in school is not masculine, social scientists say. Even in peer groups that prize good grades, it’s considered uncool to seem to try hard to earn them. Asian-American boys are somehow sheltered from that message in early childhood. The reasons could give parents and teachers information about how to help boys of all races reach their full potential." At my affluent suburban school in Silicon Valley, the social culture I was immersed in emphasized being smart being smart but not

Poetry is an accident on the freeway Poetry is frustration A dreadful inconvenience An obstacle that prevents you  From getting where you want to go  As fast as you expect to get there An interruption to your regularly scheduled programming A careless intervention  Into your carefully structured life Your blissful reverie broken Your mobility halted or slowed Forced to tail the bumper of the car in front Forced to gaze upon someone else’s destruction Forced to share in a collision Poetry is a journey delayed Poetry is personal invasion The worst and the best at once An opportunity to consider life and death An invitation to think about someone else  A chance to step outside yourself Or to think about yourself from another’s perspective Or to feel another’s pain Or to stop and help Or not Poetry is waiting Poetry is witness There are others seeing the same scene But they are irrelevant because  The experience of the acci