Fresh Off The Boat: Blog

The Fresh Off The Boat book was probably one of my favorite books that we had to read over the semester. I could really picture myself in the book as I was reading it, and I really enjoyed it. The Fresh Off The Boat was based upon the life of a Chinese boy named Eddie Huang who experienced many events throughout the entire book. Eddie hated his parents, because they always told him what was best for him. As he was growing up Eddie felt he didn’t fit in the American lifestyle, and everyone picked on him, because he was different. “Mrs. Huang, your son was out of control today and severely injured another student.”[1]

While growing up Eddie began to get in trouble numerous amounts of times, and which forced him to move around to different schools, because of his behavior. Music was Eddie Huang’s inspiration and he felt that it was his key to escape the outside world. “We listened to hip-hop because there wasn’t anything else that welcomed us in, made us feel at home.”[2] He would beat up anybody that made fun of him, because his father said to stand up for himself and not let anyone run all over him. Eddie hung around the wrong crowd he smoked, drank, and stole from others. “Before we left, we all got high hitting the bong we made out a plastic Mountain Dew bottle.”[3]

He wanted the best out of life like expensive shoes, clothes, and cars. Even though his parents didn’t help him buy the car he wanted his father just bought a car in front of his face. Occasionally Eddie and his friends would get in trouble with the law an there was serious consequences that they had to face. Eddie’s father believed that Eddie would never get into ESPN, because of the way he looked. “You have shaved head, tattoo, crazy sneakers, you think ESPN putting you on TV.”[4] In college he sold drugs, because he believed he was good at and he loved the money.

I believe that Eddie didn’t really know what he wanted to be in life once he grew up. He experienced many things that changed the way he saw things that meant to him. His mother, and father always argued with each other and it got on Eddie’s nerves. He didn’t play around when people owed him money from the drugs he sold to other people. “This fool didn’t have fifty dollars, but he was running around with a gold and silver link Tag Heuer it was worth more than three thousand.”[5] He thought he had it made when he was making money and hanging out with people who stood up for him.

Eddie Huang went to law school, but later realized that what he was doing wasn’t something that he would do forever. He figured he would make a list of the things he would accomplish in life. Eddie did a bit of stand-up comedy, and later figured that it wasn’t the life he wanted to live. He had a friend who sold shoes to other people, and Eddie thought it would be good for business to do the same thing. “Jae taught me his technique but made me agree not to poach his stores.”[6] Eddie later wanted to open up his own restaurant, but his parents disapproved of his decision. They believed that he was going through away his career, and Eddie Huang didn’t listen to his parents. He went with his own heart and he felt that it was the right place to be for him. “I wanted Baohaus to be a place the neighborhood embraced.”[7]

What I got from the book was that Eddie Huang didn’t take anything serious from anybody. He went with his own thoughts, and felt that he could accomplish anything. This book really got me to think clearly of what he was going through. In the end he went with what he loved to do and that was cooking. He met several people of that were really close to him, and some that were not so good. Consequences that cost him to think about what he had done was very wrong.

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[1] Eddie, Huang, Fresh Off The Boat: A Memoir. (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2013), 33.

[2] Huang, Fresh Off The Boat, 60.

[3] Huang, Fresh Off The Boat, 103.

[4] Huang, Fresh Off The Boat, 148.

[5] Huang, Fresh Off The Boat, 168.

[6] Huang, Fresh Off The Boat, 217.

[7] Huang, Fresh Off The Boat, 258.

The Harvard Psychedelic Club Blog

In The Harvard Psychedelic Club novel it starts off with a man named Richard Alpert who is an assistant professor in clinical psychology at Harvard University. He must hide his homosexuality from the time he is in college all the way until he gets to Harvard. David McClelland was the person who offered Albert the job at Harvard, and David came across a very brilliant man named Timothy Leary which later on in the story he would meet with Richard Albert. David McClelland was very impressed with Timothy Leary’s work and wanted him to work for Harvard. “McClelland had just read The Interpersonal Diagnosis of Personality and was very impressed with Leary’s work.”[1] Andy Weil was very interested in finding more about psychedelic drugs, and one of the students pointed out someone who may be able to assist him. “Go check out this psychologist who’s working with David McClelland, his name is Leary, and he’s into some pretty interesting stuff.”[2]

Timothy Leary and his friends ate some psilocybin mushrooms when they were staying in Mexico and they began to see things that amazed them. They drifted onto a world they would have never imagined, and everything seemed so clearer to them. “We took some mushrooms, he explained to his startled guests.”[3] When he later returned to Harvard he came up with the Harvard Psilocybin Project. They used the psilocybin the active ingredient of the magic mushrooms, and the ones who were given these drugs would write out reports of their own experiences. Richard Alpert met Timothy Leary near the airport of Mexico City and little did Leary know was that Albert barely bought the plane. They discussed their future plans with the mushroom research, and how it would help everybody. “Were going to take a whole new approach with this research, Leary told Alpert.”[4]

Richard Alpert and Timothy gave the psychedelic drug to over 200 hundred graduate students and also faculty members from Harvard and MIT. Leary later on in 1961 changed the name of the project to the Harvard Psychedelic Project. “The vast majority of the other subjects reported that the sessions were among the most power, educational, and enlightening experiences of their lives.”[5] Timothy Leary would later conduct the Good Friday Experiment and his theory was that it would give people a religious experience once they take the Psilocybin drug. Twenty students took part in this experiment which some received the Psilocybin, or either Placebo. The people who participated in this experiment completed questionnaires of their own experiences they went through while they took the drugs. Though Kelman believed that Leary and Alpert were abusing their power of going too far with researching the drugs. “You’ve got to do something, Kelman told McClelland, and these drugs are dangerous.”[6]

Alpert and Leary’s days of experimenting with Psychedelic drugs was put to rest when Andrew Weil accused them of giving drugs to undergraduate students and then Harvard fired both men. Even though the men were kicked out of Harvard they vowed to continue their research, and not to put it on hold. LSD replaced the psilocybin that Albert and Leary focused further in their research. Timothy Leary not only were kicked out of Harvard, but also three countries in a short period of time. “It turns out the CIA had tracked them all the way down to Dominica, where the agency reported the professors planned to open, an alleged Happiness Hotel.”[7] Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary refuged in a mansion in New York where they would continue their Psychedelic drug research. William and Tommy helped them get established with trust funds. The drugs made many hallucinate, and some ended up doing crazy things that cost them their lives.

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[1] Don, Lattin. The Harvard Psychedelic Club. How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age of America. (New York: HarperCollins, 2010). 20.

[2] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club, 26.

[3] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club, 41.

[4] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club, 52.

[5] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club, 61.

[6] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club, 88.

[7] Lattin, The Harvard Psychedelic Club, 111.