Feeling lighter, as it were. In fine form, fine, fine!
And tomorrow's Friday.
In a week's time, I'll be hanging out in Anchorage.
YES!
for keeping it together.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Thursday, December 4, 2008
11:16 AM: I wrote it down because
I wanted to remember a singular and penetrating feeling -- the tremendous pride I felt in watching my students' presentations of their stories in 4th period today. We journeyed with this Seedfolks story "Gonzalo" over the past 2 weeks. We planted its substance and style inside their heads, tended it, watered it, and let it grow. We took it apart, looked at all the pieces, manipulated them every which way, and then they put the pieces back together again and made the story their own. They wrote stories based on "Gonzalo" with a new, re-imagined ending, and today they presented to their classmates and scored each other's final product and presentation using a rubric.
(I pip: "...success?")
I was proud, proud! So happy and proud to look around the room and witness a perfect moment, as if it were suspended in amber -- their transformation from curious listener-readers to masterful, engaged, engaging writer-speakers in full view.
A single school moment can start to unravel me inside...
I saw today, though, that a single school moment can also wind my mind and spirit up tight like a coil. It can remind me all over again, as though I had never felt it before, of exactly why I love. to. TEACH.
(I pip: "...success?")
I was proud, proud! So happy and proud to look around the room and witness a perfect moment, as if it were suspended in amber -- their transformation from curious listener-readers to masterful, engaged, engaging writer-speakers in full view.
A single school moment can start to unravel me inside...
I saw today, though, that a single school moment can also wind my mind and spirit up tight like a coil. It can remind me all over again, as though I had never felt it before, of exactly why I love. to. TEACH.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Monday's gem:
Got a very pleasant "I'm glad to see you" vibe this morning before the beginning of 1st period as my students sauntered in (and lo, how they sauntered!) after this very long weekend.
I'm not asking to be adored, popular, missed... No, no. It was just a lovely feeling -- to see those faces and those smiles, to hear random tidbits in English and Spanish about the food, family and friends that filled up their weekends. To joke, to laugh, to inquire. And to have them ask about mine. It was just one tiny, glimmering moment of caring in the classroom.
I'm not asking to be adored, popular, missed... No, no. It was just a lovely feeling -- to see those faces and those smiles, to hear random tidbits in English and Spanish about the food, family and friends that filled up their weekends. To joke, to laugh, to inquire. And to have them ask about mine. It was just one tiny, glimmering moment of caring in the classroom.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
A Thanksgiving epistle
Dear Family,
I wish I were with you today, bustling around between the kitchen and dining room, fulfilling my unofficially-official role as mistress of etiquette. That was my job -- my pride as the young woman, firstborn: yes, setting our family's Thanksgiving table thrilled me anew each year. How proud and glad I was to make our gathering place beautiful.
It's been seven years since I have set that table. When I say it -- when I write "seven years," it seems an impossibly long time ago. Where was I, again? Oh, college and the Peace Corps. Seven Thanksgivings spent with surrogate families, patchwork crazy quilts of adoptive cousins. Sans china, sans silver, sans crystal or candles, sans oblong teak tables with gray-battened chairs, I lost my role as place setter. Instead, I claimed other mantles: pie-maker, wine-procurer, cabbage-cutter, photo-snapper. I reinvented Thanksgiving in those new homes.
I'm back in the U.S. now after four Thanksgivings abroad, and there's a big piece of me that wishes I could have spent JUST THIS ONE with you. It's our last chance for a holiday together for a while. That's a sharp sting. But, I'll be back in Anchorage in one month's time.
We'll be complete strangers to the reality of our new family dynamic, but out of that strangeness, we'll forge something strong and new together. I'll reclaim my my place as Christmas dinner table-mistress -- and pie-maker, brother-encourager, dish-washer, mother-listener, cocoa-cooker. Day by day, did someone say? Day by day. From this flux, we're moving towards stability. We'll figure out what it means to be The Gardners, Reconfigured.
Until then, this is an open letter to my family, and to all people giving thanks on this day. I give thanks for the ones I love, for starting over, for transformation, for carrying on. I give thanks for the music and poetry that I hear ringing in the halls, the streets, the fields, oceans and skies. I give thanks for traditions, and for breaking them, and for gluing the pieces together with other broken bits to make a transcendent and luminous whole. I give thanks for Americans voting their hearts, and for a man with a vision who unites us as a people. I give thanks for hot tea and for small dogs and for healthy food that nourishes my body. I give thanks for the support from my boyfriend, friends, colleagues and mentors that pours over me when I stand anxious and full of questions. I pray for all people everywhere to have enough to sustain their hearts, bodies, and minds. I pray for victims of violence -- physical, mental, social, economic. I pray for healing and I pray for love-as-justice.
And finally (for now), I give thanks for Rilke and this wisdom: "Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day."
Love to you on this Thanksgiving Day.
Amanda
I wish I were with you today, bustling around between the kitchen and dining room, fulfilling my unofficially-official role as mistress of etiquette. That was my job -- my pride as the young woman, firstborn: yes, setting our family's Thanksgiving table thrilled me anew each year. How proud and glad I was to make our gathering place beautiful.
It's been seven years since I have set that table. When I say it -- when I write "seven years," it seems an impossibly long time ago. Where was I, again? Oh, college and the Peace Corps. Seven Thanksgivings spent with surrogate families, patchwork crazy quilts of adoptive cousins. Sans china, sans silver, sans crystal or candles, sans oblong teak tables with gray-battened chairs, I lost my role as place setter. Instead, I claimed other mantles: pie-maker, wine-procurer, cabbage-cutter, photo-snapper. I reinvented Thanksgiving in those new homes.
I'm back in the U.S. now after four Thanksgivings abroad, and there's a big piece of me that wishes I could have spent JUST THIS ONE with you. It's our last chance for a holiday together for a while. That's a sharp sting. But, I'll be back in Anchorage in one month's time.
We'll be complete strangers to the reality of our new family dynamic, but out of that strangeness, we'll forge something strong and new together. I'll reclaim my my place as Christmas dinner table-mistress -- and pie-maker, brother-encourager, dish-washer, mother-listener, cocoa-cooker. Day by day, did someone say? Day by day. From this flux, we're moving towards stability. We'll figure out what it means to be The Gardners, Reconfigured.
Until then, this is an open letter to my family, and to all people giving thanks on this day. I give thanks for the ones I love, for starting over, for transformation, for carrying on. I give thanks for the music and poetry that I hear ringing in the halls, the streets, the fields, oceans and skies. I give thanks for traditions, and for breaking them, and for gluing the pieces together with other broken bits to make a transcendent and luminous whole. I give thanks for Americans voting their hearts, and for a man with a vision who unites us as a people. I give thanks for hot tea and for small dogs and for healthy food that nourishes my body. I give thanks for the support from my boyfriend, friends, colleagues and mentors that pours over me when I stand anxious and full of questions. I pray for all people everywhere to have enough to sustain their hearts, bodies, and minds. I pray for victims of violence -- physical, mental, social, economic. I pray for healing and I pray for love-as-justice.
And finally (for now), I give thanks for Rilke and this wisdom: "Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day."
Love to you on this Thanksgiving Day.
Amanda
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Alex and dreaming
I started pining for Anchorage and familiarity because I know that's the place Alex is going back to. It's the place my heart wants to go, too.
He sends me texts like this one from the Newark airport:
"...you change you mind and you're coming with! Yes! I'll meet you at security! See you soon! Hurry!"
Needless to say, his was a wonderful visit, in spite of my intermittent, stressed-out/overall brattiness. I'm swinging down, down, down now, into those post-visit blues that I wish I could vanquish. Then again, something would be wrong if I didn't feel so sad.
Back to the grind. Seven and a half weeks...
He sends me texts like this one from the Newark airport:
"...you change you mind and you're coming with! Yes! I'll meet you at security! See you soon! Hurry!"
Needless to say, his was a wonderful visit, in spite of my intermittent, stressed-out/overall brattiness. I'm swinging down, down, down now, into those post-visit blues that I wish I could vanquish. Then again, something would be wrong if I didn't feel so sad.
Back to the grind. Seven and a half weeks...
Thursday, October 23, 2008
P/T Confs
- 5:45 PM: Sitting in my 5th floor room with Mr. K and I still can't believe how goddamn cynical he is. Please let me find a new profession before I get even 50% as burnt out and dismissive as he is. He's pretty funny, though, and it cracks me up how often he repeats his same ol' favorite stories and brassy bits of life-wisdom. I'm gonna start keeping a tally or something.
- 6:24 PM: I've talked to 3 parents so far: M's (super smart but super lazy; chronic late-arriver), Y's (whip-smart and helpful, I have no complaints; she just happens to be in a shitty class), and C's (his mom is dead set on him taking the Regents, but I'm not so convinced; he needs to wake up and get a little more serious)... My Portespañol is funny. The kids are doing a great job of interpreting.
- 7:50 PM: Talked to D and H's mom for evvvvvverrrrr... she cried. She talked. A lot. I feel for the woman. I think I would cry, too, if I were a single mother a) with three sons, b) who worked a full-time job, and c) had one extremely angry son who people think should be in residential behavioral treatment. We need to have faith, I told her through the interpreter. (Strange, when I don't know how much faith I have myself...) Now, MARIA'S MOM!! I can't stop gushing about the girl [whilst also describing to her the challenges we, as a class, are confronting]. Maria. Diamond in a coal mine. ...I feel like the universe conspired to make this flawless Point:Counterpoint about my first two months of teaching
- 9:19 PM: Home again, home again, jiggity jig. I rode home in tha Lex with Mrs. P, Ms. D, and Ms. B... shared some therapeutic teacher chat and got off at our respective uptown Broadway stops. I'm gonna take a swig of Jack and bump the T.I.; let's call this a night.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Einstein
said that there are two ways to live: as if nothing is a miracle, or as if everything is. And I say, my spirit demands the latter.
"In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity," he also said. I'm looking, looking... These things can be so hard to see. Tired eyes.
"In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity," he also said. I'm looking, looking... These things can be so hard to see. Tired eyes.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Ize on the prize
I bought my plane ticket to Anchorage yesterday while I was on the phone with my mom. Something inside me turned lighter as we spoke: the thought of going home for Christmas suddenly seemed bright, warm, welcoming, instead of this lonely, heavy darkness -- some mental fortress that I'd built up in my head. So, click click. I bought it. (You see, my mom is the type of person who would never say outright, "Amanda, please come home for Christmas" ; her mere allusion to taking some pleasure or comfort in my being around was enough to get me to buy my ticket home.)
Alex had asked me to think about coming back around then, and I had responded negatively -- immediately -- this based wholly on an incapacitating fear of looking pain and change squarely in the face. I had begun imagining a grand and sunny escape to the Caribbean as some sort of midwinter, midyear, mid-crisis (?) cure-all. My change of heart has me thinking that might not have been quite right. I'm sure Jamaica is absolutely amazing, but I know now that there is a more important place that I need to be for the holidays. I'm going to go back to the place that still holds many of the biggest pieces of my heart, and rejoice in those whom I love.
I'm still pretty damn scared by the idea of going home to a place that will be barely recognizable to me. My father's impending absence is a spreading shadow with no source, a Big Nothing. What will Home be with half the bedrock pulled out from underneath the foundation? "Insane. I don't know. I don't want to look," said my brain. What WILL Home be? I don't know, but I think it's only responsible and right for me to pull my shit together and take that look alongside my mom and my brother. They are already putting things back together, filling in the cracks and the missing parts in new ways; I suppose I am, too. Going home will help me to understand how and where our putting-together makes a new Whole.
And, the time that I'll get to spend with Alex will be lovely and renewing. Where I had once only been able to obsess over the dreariness of Anchorage in December, I now see sweet and quiet hours with the person I'm so excited to be adventuring with. (Hot chocolate, winter walks, golden-gray afternoons and making dinner: a small taste of what's to come.) How selfish of me to have fixated so acutely and so stubbornly on my own sadness. ///Break the cycle! Wake up! Look outside! The sun's still shining. You can still love and be loved./// It's high time to see the big picture and start living and actualizing love instead of dwelling on the deficits and the hurt. Current financial crisis ≈ my own inner turmoil (the difference being, of course, that the turning-around of my own psycho-emotional situation is my direct responsibility).
And from January 2nd, when I leave Alaska, it won't be long at all until Alex is here in New York. Our journey together has already begun -- is ongoing -- but a bold new chapter is imminent. This potential of ours is swelling like a sonata.
...I just had a dream this morning where I was driving in a car on a wide, main street at night in the wintertime. It might've been Anchorage. I couldn't brake; I spun off onto a side street, kept spinning spinning spinning, pulled the e-brake, miraculously managed to dodge different cars and snow berms and swerve finally, breathlessly, to complete stop somewhere in the middle of a residential street packed hard with the whitest snow. I wonder if it's at all telling of my current situation -- that I feel as though these times are mostly dark and not in my control, but that in the end, I am still driving and surviving, and I'll make it through and find some stability in the end.
Ultimately, the love that dwells within me -- my love for my mother, my brother, and Alex -- has trumped the fear. That's pretty major.
"I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me..."
but I'm pretty sure it won't.
Alex had asked me to think about coming back around then, and I had responded negatively -- immediately -- this based wholly on an incapacitating fear of looking pain and change squarely in the face. I had begun imagining a grand and sunny escape to the Caribbean as some sort of midwinter, midyear, mid-crisis (?) cure-all. My change of heart has me thinking that might not have been quite right. I'm sure Jamaica is absolutely amazing, but I know now that there is a more important place that I need to be for the holidays. I'm going to go back to the place that still holds many of the biggest pieces of my heart, and rejoice in those whom I love.
I'm still pretty damn scared by the idea of going home to a place that will be barely recognizable to me. My father's impending absence is a spreading shadow with no source, a Big Nothing. What will Home be with half the bedrock pulled out from underneath the foundation? "Insane. I don't know. I don't want to look," said my brain. What WILL Home be? I don't know, but I think it's only responsible and right for me to pull my shit together and take that look alongside my mom and my brother. They are already putting things back together, filling in the cracks and the missing parts in new ways; I suppose I am, too. Going home will help me to understand how and where our putting-together makes a new Whole.
And, the time that I'll get to spend with Alex will be lovely and renewing. Where I had once only been able to obsess over the dreariness of Anchorage in December, I now see sweet and quiet hours with the person I'm so excited to be adventuring with. (Hot chocolate, winter walks, golden-gray afternoons and making dinner: a small taste of what's to come.) How selfish of me to have fixated so acutely and so stubbornly on my own sadness. ///Break the cycle! Wake up! Look outside! The sun's still shining. You can still love and be loved./// It's high time to see the big picture and start living and actualizing love instead of dwelling on the deficits and the hurt. Current financial crisis ≈ my own inner turmoil (the difference being, of course, that the turning-around of my own psycho-emotional situation is my direct responsibility).
And from January 2nd, when I leave Alaska, it won't be long at all until Alex is here in New York. Our journey together has already begun -- is ongoing -- but a bold new chapter is imminent. This potential of ours is swelling like a sonata.
...I just had a dream this morning where I was driving in a car on a wide, main street at night in the wintertime. It might've been Anchorage. I couldn't brake; I spun off onto a side street, kept spinning spinning spinning, pulled the e-brake, miraculously managed to dodge different cars and snow berms and swerve finally, breathlessly, to complete stop somewhere in the middle of a residential street packed hard with the whitest snow. I wonder if it's at all telling of my current situation -- that I feel as though these times are mostly dark and not in my control, but that in the end, I am still driving and surviving, and I'll make it through and find some stability in the end.
Ultimately, the love that dwells within me -- my love for my mother, my brother, and Alex -- has trumped the fear. That's pretty major.
"I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me..."
but I'm pretty sure it won't.
Monday, October 6, 2008
from Maria's prewrite
I have one particularly sweet, serious, and studious young lady in two of my classes -- Writing (1st period) and ESL 3 (6th and 7th). Let's call her Maria.
Coming in armed with two previous days' worth of fictional narrative and dialogue study, my students worked on Characterization on Friday. I asked them to focus on developing a character -- either one they already knew, or one they imagined. Maria chose to use me as her "character," which I found a bit funny to begin with. What was REALLY interesting, though, was her prewrite on setting, plot, and characters. I cracked up. What she wrote was so perfect:
Pre-writing
1) Setting
I see Ms. Gardner twice every day in the room 534. I see her at 8:27 in the morning and at 12:30 in the noon.
2) Plot
During the morning the class is amazing but in the noon it is a disaster. However, there are many good students during the noon class
3) [Characters]
Ms. Gardner and her students
Oh, Maria, you said it. We're gonna keep at it, though!
Coming in armed with two previous days' worth of fictional narrative and dialogue study, my students worked on Characterization on Friday. I asked them to focus on developing a character -- either one they already knew, or one they imagined. Maria chose to use me as her "character," which I found a bit funny to begin with. What was REALLY interesting, though, was her prewrite on setting, plot, and characters. I cracked up. What she wrote was so perfect:
Pre-writing
1) Setting
I see Ms. Gardner twice every day in the room 534. I see her at 8:27 in the morning and at 12:30 in the noon.
2) Plot
During the morning the class is amazing but in the noon it is a disaster. However, there are many good students during the noon class
3) [Characters]
Ms. Gardner and her students
Oh, Maria, you said it. We're gonna keep at it, though!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
blessed clever compromiser
5 good things
Staedtler Mars plastic erasers
Mon/Thurs Night Solidarity with the Women of PCF-TESOL
random conversation on public transportation
Gala apples
late September morning chill
5 things that suck
negative downer colleagues
no free time
dog shit smeared all over the sidewalk
anxiety that melts into hopelessness
high-waisted pantyhose
5 more good things
my brother text messaging me
Marc Jacobs dresses
singing to myself on the commute home
making it another week
baby spinach with smashed avocado and pomegranate vinaigrette
Staedtler Mars plastic erasers
Mon/Thurs Night Solidarity with the Women of PCF-TESOL
random conversation on public transportation
Gala apples
late September morning chill
5 things that suck
negative downer colleagues
no free time
dog shit smeared all over the sidewalk
anxiety that melts into hopelessness
high-waisted pantyhose
5 more good things
my brother text messaging me
Marc Jacobs dresses
singing to myself on the commute home
making it another week
baby spinach with smashed avocado and pomegranate vinaigrette
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Overheard in the BX
Getting off at the Elder Ave stop at 8:25 AM this morning
Random guy from 6 train: ¿Estás bien?
Me: Uh... sim, estou bem... I mean, bien... Sorry. I speak Portuguese. I'm still learning Spanish from my students.
Random guy: Oh, wow! I speak Portuguese, too. Have a bom djee-yah.
Heading back to school after lunch, walking up Boynton
Dude from the block: (Yelling to me) Nice sweater! (Pause. He passes, then shouts backwards) ...mine's better.
Walking down the shady side of the street at 3:46 PM
19 year old kid: (To me, but unprovoked by sneeze or other bodily function) God bless you.
Me: (confused) Well, God bless you, too!
Random guy from 6 train: ¿Estás bien?
Me: Uh... sim, estou bem... I mean, bien... Sorry. I speak Portuguese. I'm still learning Spanish from my students.
Random guy: Oh, wow! I speak Portuguese, too. Have a bom djee-yah.
Heading back to school after lunch, walking up Boynton
Dude from the block: (Yelling to me) Nice sweater! (Pause. He passes, then shouts backwards) ...mine's better.
Walking down the shady side of the street at 3:46 PM
19 year old kid: (To me, but unprovoked by sneeze or other bodily function) God bless you.
Me: (confused) Well, God bless you, too!
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Life is hard when you
...want like hell to do your job well, but aren't able to. Not yet, at least.
I'm sitting here at my desk with sleep-blurred eyes on a Sunday night, wondering how I'll get through this, my first year of teaching. I don't suppose the answer to that involves Me Bitching A Lot or Sitting On My Ass and Procrastinating (two things I've done quite a lot of today).
It seems so cliché, but truly: How do I reach these kids?
How do I reach these kids when I'm just trying to make sense of my place in my school to begin with? ...of my resources, of the school culture, of the theory that's being thrown at me? I want to plan and react and assess and progress with all my heart, but sometimes I don't know where to begin. Even with 3 years in Moz and all that summer prep with PC Fellows, I still don't know what the hell I'm doing.
It's all so very much. I'm catching and throwing blindly, for now.
I'm sitting here at my desk with sleep-blurred eyes on a Sunday night, wondering how I'll get through this, my first year of teaching. I don't suppose the answer to that involves Me Bitching A Lot or Sitting On My Ass and Procrastinating (two things I've done quite a lot of today).
It seems so cliché, but truly: How do I reach these kids?
How do I reach these kids when I'm just trying to make sense of my place in my school to begin with? ...of my resources, of the school culture, of the theory that's being thrown at me? I want to plan and react and assess and progress with all my heart, but sometimes I don't know where to begin. Even with 3 years in Moz and all that summer prep with PC Fellows, I still don't know what the hell I'm doing.
It's all so very much. I'm catching and throwing blindly, for now.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Wassup wassup
It's been a good five months since I've been 'round these here parts.
BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN!
BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN!
Friday, January 11, 2008
Hot! Choc! Cupcakes.
Last night marked my first cupcake-making venture of the new year. I was largely inspired by a cookbook of my mom's that I had spotted on Wednesday, Krystina Castella's eye-catching Crazy About Cupcakes. "More than 300 recipe and design ideas," trumpets the back cover. Whoa. No joke! The book is chock full of some of the tastiest-sounding recipes and coolest decorations that I've seen in all of cupcakedom. Where to begin?
My brother Ryan chose my First Creation at random: Hot Chocolate cupcakes. Here are some scenes from their making.
-I had only the very last bit of some store-bought whipped cream on hand, so I just stuck marshmallow frosting, marshmallows and a dusting of cocoa powder on top. Still very yum.
Adjustments.
-I didn't have yogurt, so I substituted sour cream instead. (I found this Q&A on a cooking website just now... hahah.)-I had only the very last bit of some store-bought whipped cream on hand, so I just stuck marshmallow frosting, marshmallows and a dusting of cocoa powder on top. Still very yum.
Observations, commentary, blah blah.
Chocolate cupcake + marshmallows on top = Hot Choc. So simple, it's brilliant. The color of the cupcake wasn't quite the rich hot-chocolatey brown that I was expecting, though. Perhaps that had something to do with the sour cream (?). Also, I found the marshmallow frosting fun to make, but tricky to spread due to its extreme gooey-ness. Consider yourself warned.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Doo, doo, doo, lookin' out my front door
First, linkage. Emily D. sent me a link to this NY Times article yesterday -- a really sharp Op-Ed piece concerning 21st century Peace Corps and some of its weaknesses. The author's assessments are hard-hitting, sensible and realistic. This should be a real wake-up call to Peace Corps Washington.
I'm in agreement. It's time to give PC a makeover.
The question is, I guess, will anyone in Washington get the memo?
Also: IT'S SNOWING! I get really excited whenever it snows -- the novelty hasn’t worn off quite yet. It's gorgeous (and COLD) outside. Tetenses, Maputenses, Brasileiros, qualquer pessoa que nunca viu a neve: dá uma olhada.
All in a day's... something
Yesterday can be broken up into roughly three parts, all of which I'm sure will shock and amaze:
I. Sleeping and dozing
II. Sorting and cleaning (at home)
III. Yelling and cheering (at the hockey game)
The sleeping part was pleasant, with the "cold house/warm covers" combo and the 8 uninterrupted hours of rest stuff going on. Alaska is a GREAT place for sleeping, let me tell you. Hibernation station. Maybe I'm still caught up in being Comparey McMozambican-Comparerson. Really, though, there's something delightful about not waking up at 6 AM with beads of sweat already forming on my brow and my head pulsating with the bass line from next door.
Sorting and cleaning: I've been needing to do this for a while. Two and a half weeks' worth of a while, in fact. Today was The Day. It's amazing the things you find in your house after three years' absence -- time capsule city. Amongst the rescued party: a rockin' yellow terry cloth sweatband! A photo of 10 year old me and Hillary Clinton! A handmade, gold spray painted TV on the Radio patch! My cat! Chanel sunglasses! Tampons! What fun. Maybe I'll uncover a few more long-lost treasures in the pre-NYC weeks to come.
After a hard day's sortin', it was time to have quasi-family-time and go to the Aces game with my dad. (Quick digression here: I love hockey. Seriously. LOVE IT. As far as American diversions go, The Hockey Game has usurped the hallowed place of Ye Olde Indie Rock Show in my life for the time being. Quite simply, there are lots of fun, exciting Aces games and not a whole lot of fun, exciting indie rock shows in Anchorage.) Solid skating and some beautiful assists in the first two periods, and then, ppffffftttttt, the defensive line absolutely fell apart at the end of the third period. 5-4 Stockton (opposing team) in sudden death; exeunt me and Pops. Boo! But, fun nonetheless.
Y'know, come to think of it, I lied. There was absolutely nothing shocking or extraordinary about yesterday.
It was just good.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
First post. This one's gonna hurt
Coming back to the States "for good" after three trying, beautiful, zany years in southern Africa would be, by anyone's measure, f-ing weird. And so far, I must say, it IS. Really. F-ing. Weird.
I still feel very much the outsider -- the stereotypically out-of-the-loop, recently returned Peace Corps kid who doesn't quite know her place yet. Who, most likely, will have to eke out an entirely new place for herself through that nebulous, drawn-out process called Reintegration. I have been back for a mere thirteen-point-five days. Already, I can't help but feel that I'll start to readapt to American life better if I have and follow (however loosely) some sort of game plan.
Reintegration game plan = What I always do, 2008 edish'.
Bake cupcakes. Conjugate verbs. Dance. Read. Get crafty. Be musicky. And...
Write.
I feel I have much to catch up on after my 38 months in Mozambique -- much to see and do, process and feel. Lucky for me, I happen to have just a bit of catching-up time at my disposal before I scamper off in a new direction. And now, ta-dah! My very own, brand-new, shiny happy blog (whatever that is). Então vamos.
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