Upward Bound

My second column article

When we grow up, our idealism begins to wear off and cynicism takes over. We do all kinds of cost-benefit analysis for our possible actions and then surrender with a heavy sign, “nothing matters”. No more childhood dreams of “being a scientist” or “saving the world”. We take any jobs that help raise the prosperity of a fancy car and a spacious apartment. Well, that’s a world from the perspective of a cynic like me. Once a while, however, my altruistic self will dictate me to do something different. That’s how I got involved with Upward Bound.

Upward Bound is a program that helps low-income high school students in preparing for college. My duty this summer is tutoring 7 Hispanic high school seniors three nights a week for a month. They are all from low-income immigrant families. They were picked into the program because of their potential in succeeding in higher education. Compared to the kids from the dance camp (see my last week’s column), however, they have much less resources to realize their potentials.

To be honest, they do not study as hard as any of my friends back in my high school years. Although I am their tutor, they do not ask me academic questions quite often. Instead, they like to horse around during their study-hall session. One guy Ronnie is the clown, always making people laugh, but always behind his own homework. Yuni is the loud one. She has a tall figure and an amazing smile. She can start a hip-hop dance, or even fight with boys, in the middle of study session. Ivy and Christina are quiet and patient. They are the ones who get homework done in time and help Ronnie on his homework in their spare time. Meleto studies Chinese this summer to fulfill her foreign language requirement. She asked me once what was “small study”, and it took me a while to figure out that she was talking about “elementary school”. One night, all of them got curious about Chinese. I taught them a bunch of Chinese words. Now they say “Ni Hao (hello)” when they see me and accuse each other as “Shu Dai Zi (nerd)”, and then giggle.

Today is the last day of the tutoring. I missed their talent show earlier. When I arrived at their study hall session, the excitement about the performance hadn’t died down. They performed a dance again in the lobby along with music from laptop speakers. They showed me clips of the show. During one section students described their kisses with metaphors. “My kiss is like taking a shower, warm and will go as long as you want.” “My kiss is like coconut, sweet in the beginning and smooth in the end.” And my favorite, “My kiss is like time, which never ends.” The audience screamed like crazy. Well, I am impressed by their potentials, not only in kissing or Chinese, but also in succeeding in college. I wish them the best in applying for college next year.