La Lutte Constante (and the Chinese Dinner)

There are three of us working toward our masters' degrees this year in my department, and one of us is a 30-something Haitian man, another is a fresh-out-of-college Chinese girl, and the third is me. At first I thought we'd have nothing in common, but I'm beginning to revise that opinion.

Last night, I was served an authentic Chinese dinner by one of my colleagues (I'll let you guess whom.) I was a little let down that the meal was not a schmorgesbord of new and exotic dishes, but I realized that it was pretty good considering the facts that a. we are not in China and b. she lives in a dorm and had to make do with this bizarrely huge industrial kitchen provided for the dorm residents. She made something that looked and tasted a lot like tortellini with mushrooms and bok choi into a sort of soup, and then scrambled eggs together with a cut-up tomato. I can't really complain because it was good, and hey, it was a free dinner. But I think the most exotic ingredient was sesame oil, which I've had my fair share of already. Maybe I'm just much more worldly than I think.

Today, I was talking to the same classmate, commiserating with her about how much easier our lives would be if we had actually been raised in France. As I was trying to explain to her why I chose to study literature at the graduate level in a foreign language (when I suppose I could have chosen to do it in English, seeing as I majored in that as well), I realized that I actually crave the challenge. Perhaps it's masochistic, but if it isn't obvious already, I don't like taking the easy road. Which sometimes comes into conflict with one of my other strong character traits: the tendency I have to detest being bad at anything. If you're thinking that this combination must result in some kind of daily internal struggle, you're right. But I'm not sure I could live any other way.