In my ever-expanding quest to make myself the Best Graduate School Applicant I Can Be, I decided (Wednesday) to retake the GRE, as most grad schools take the best scores you get and don’t average them. When you decide to take the GRE and you only have two weeks in which to do it, your options end up being somewhat limited, which is why I ended up taking it today (Sunday). That’s three days of prep, in case you were counting.
Evidently the powers that be had decided that I could use a break from the less than ideal things happening in my life right now, because during the quant part, I lost track of time, guessed on five or six questions, and still managed to a) defeat my old score and b) meet Princeton’s average entry score. HOLLER. I also had a mimosa at noon. Maybe it was the champagne?
I don’t know that this reflects my actual abilities in the arena of math, for the reasons stated above, but I certainly could use this ego boost. Thanks, ETS.
I’m in a Starbucks near Howard U now, but I’m going to a rescheduled JustFaith meeting in a few. Our reading for the past week has come from a really terrific book, Jonathan Kozol’s Amazing Grace, which is not as good as Random Family – probably the ne plus ultra of the genre – but still pretty good. I’m finding JF surprisingly rewarding, and it’s a good way to cap off a day that has gone better than most as of late.
Airports are such lonely places – sometimes I can’t fathom how I ever loved flying so much – but I will say this: there is an undeniable thrill about flying down into a city, which, from the dark, looks like a maze of lights, like it could have anything. Robots or magic monkeys or cable cars run entirely by elves. Which is why the runway, and everything after, is such a letdown. Good thing coming home feels so good.
As I continue my graduate school search, I am continually reminded of an exchange from 30 Rock (I certainly am pop-culture happy lately) that seems off-and-on relevant.
Jack: We might not be the best people.
Liz: But we’re not the worst!
Jack and Liz (in unison): Graduate students are the worst.
Today I visited a very good school and had an interview with a really nice, down-to-earth guy, and then I attended a very small info session with another really nice, seemingly very grounded girl. They struck me as intellectually curious, engaged, and eager to make a meaningful contribution to the human race. About the people who attended the information session with me, however, I can generally not be so charitable. Said one girl, who had experience working for a state legislator, “I have experience with public policy on the state level, but I’ve always wanted to work on the international level…Everyone here seems to have a very specific work background. Is (school) okay for people like me, without that sort of background?” The session leader started to explain, “Well, on your application, you are going to want to demonstrate some sort of focus -” after which the girl cut in and said, “Oh, no, I’m not worried about getting in, because I have international experience.” And I was like, I’m glad you’re not worried, have fun being the only one on that island. Another guy was doing research for the Fed in Dallas and booked it halfway through the info session because, as he informed us coolly, “I have another meeting at Harvard.” Bully for you, buddy. I know part of this is reflective of my own inferiority complex re: not having a traditional background or working for someplace well-known. Also, handling more snot and communicable diseases in a week than most people see in a year. Still, however, I find myself deeply annoyed by a lot of these people.
Despite having gotten Not Much Sleep the night before, I was kept fully alert this morning at the airport by the terror alert level (orange) and the news that one Republican had crossed over to vote yes on the health care debate. I was a bit surprised, until I heard that it was my beloved Anh Cao. Say what you like about the abortion compromise (which is a topic for another post another time, or perhaps it isn’t); I was mostly happy to see him not acting like a partisan asshole. He’s not going to make many friends by doing this, which I think is pretty admirable. Also: do they even let people fly on red? And, given my own lack of knowledge on this subject, do people even pay attention to this sort of thing anymore?
I’m here in Boston for a grad school interview, and I took the time to see Auntie Phu, who is a family friend, and Ba Muoi, who is my ninety-five-year-old great-great-aunt. Aunt Phu promptly whisked me off to a birthday party for her niece, which featured awesome Viet food and a durian-flavored birthday cake that tasted like a combination of fish, onions, and whipped cream. It reminded me of the episode of Friends where Rachel accidentally makes a trifle-shepherd’s pie hybrid. I wonder if people my age are the last group to use Friends as a reference point. There were just so many episodes that it’s easy to find what you’re looking for, I suppose.
I bought a copy of both The Atlantic and Details at the airport, as is somewhat customary, and saw that the metro system in Boston has better names for its stops (though there’s certainly no Tooting Broadway.) but otherwise appears to be dirtier and more expensive than the DC metro, which makes me question Rooms and K’s March assertions re: my fair city’s transport system. Care to explain?
Filed under: life progress
O Best Beloved! How I have neglected you.
But I’m back in the game, tentatively, for several reasons. You probably need an update for what’s happened in my life since March (short version: a lot). Being inspired in no small part by Rooms, who has just taken a position as an au pair in Geneva with a family that is Just! Like! Mine!, I have decided to resume writing in part so that she knows what is going on in case I sleep through the times I am supposed to call her – which, realistically, is probably going to happen. I would like to establish at this juncture that I was in favor of her other choice, Helveticana (get it? like Americana? also, this alludes to our mutual love of typefaces), but that, as usual, I responded too late. Go look at the other blog titles she tried, and failed, to get – http://marie.blogspot.com is particularly offensive.*
So here, without further ado, is what has happened to me: I have been sucked back into the world of the 공부방, one that never fails to seduce me with its siren songs of late parents and inadequate snacks and kids who wet their pants. Which is to say that I am now running an after-school program, just like I did in college, except that this one houses two hundred children and I get paid to ensure that it functions smoothly. Things that I do get: money. Things that I do not get: school supplies – at least not yet. Our program has been running since the 24th of August, and they told us this week – nearly a month after program start – that we would have $3500 for school supplies to order, and then they changed it to $1000 and told us that if we didn’t want to order that day, we’d have to wait until the 1st of October. They also reminded us, helpfully, that $1000 is still more than after-school coordinators got last year, which is a whole lot of cold comfort if you ask me. I’m working for DC Public Schools, which is trying pretty hard, I guess. I work at a school in this neighborhood, so basically we’re looking at a lot more of the same from last year (and from the rest of my life, if anyone’s counting). I am much happier doing this than teaching special education, because after a bad day as a sped teacher, I would be consumed with an overwhelming sense of failure, whereas a bad day running afterschool never gives me that feeling. I also have a lot more autonomy, which is nice. I am trying to infuse the program with a sense of mission and also with some fun: we have Community Meetings, modeled after Summerbridge, and we also have a Spirit Stick that is given out every week. I was using Aaron Copland to announce recess, but it turns out that no one could hear it. Still working on it.
What happened with the other jobs was this: I was laid off from my school in the spring. I suspect that they always knew they would not be able to keep me and hired me to fill a gap without telling me. Thanks, peeps. I was hired to run a high school program for Asian high school students, which was mad fun but also really stressful, and there was the possibility that that job would extend into the fall, but then they didn’t get the grant money to keep it as a full-time job. Fortunately, DCPS came in and saved the day, and by “saved the day” I mean they allowed me to keep living in the city. Thank God. Things have been a bit ridiculous, which they really shouldn’t be, because I work from 11-7:30; in other words, I ought to have more time than I know what to do with, but somehow I still manage to run out. I need to get back to volunteering with Capitol Letters, and I’m writing more now here. Overall, I’m pretty proud of myself.
Of course, there is another reason that I am trying to get back to blogging, and that reason is the addition of an extra person in my life, a person who shall hereafter be known as IGR-Boo (IGRB). IGRB and I have been spending a lot of time together over the past couple of months, and while it’s been lovely, I’ve started to realize that I’ve been neglecting certain aspects of myself – in other words, I’ve been too reliant on the idea of myself + someone else and not working to develop just me. Writing is one of those areas. I like blogging, and I intend to return to it. So there. I’ve also been listening to the Weakerthans. I wonder if it is possible for me to return to one element of my life without returning to all the others by necessity.
*stupid
Filed under: life progress
I am alive. Really.
I had this plan in which I would descend upon DC, perfectly organized, and begin living my life in a more efficient way than ever before. I am not even joking when I say that I sincerely believed this would happen.
Here is a more accurate summation of what my life has been like: I am in House #2, with boxes strewn across my room, a room that is in no way in the original place I was planning to live. I can’t find my keys, which I threw down last night as I stumbled home from an outing with the teachers in which I am pretty sure I talked way too much. I acquired furniture about a week ago; before that, I was rifling through my suitcase at 6 AM every morning.
Are you ready for a shocker? Life in the real world is unexpected. It’s hard. I feel like kind of an idiot a lot of the time. Teaching special ed is also hard, a statement that is approximately akin to saying that the sky is often blue.
But I’m still happy here on my own. I have a room in NW that will be lovely when I get it finally, finally, cleaned up. I am writing more, mostly here, which is the latest iteration of what I was doing before. I’m learning more about how to be a teacher and a decent human being than I even thought I didn’t know. Mostly, I’ve managed to keep it together a little more than before, the keep-it-together-meter inching ever upward, which seems like what happens when you do finally grow up.
I’ve been listening to a lot of Bonnie Prince Billy and Beirut lately, but I’m looking forward to music for the spring, whenever it comes.
Filed under: I am not cool, IGR Recommends, history, life progress, meta, music | Tags: music, Vietnam
I thought I only had one thing to write about, but actually I was wrong.
1. You probably have (not) noticed that my avatar has changed. Tricia Takanawa seems to fit me, since we’re both essentially Connie Chung 2.0. Given the fact that I do have a job that will be starting soon, I need to make a much stronger effort towards anonymity. I’m also going to try to sort of consolidate my internet identity in the new year, because I have so many damn projects going on. I need to make sure that everything is identifiably me, where “me” is “anonymous” (unless you already know me). At least that’s what I’m thinking right now.
2. I lost my watch. I really hate losing things, which is strange, because I do it so often that one would think I would have established some sort of fail-safe by now. I know it’s in my room somewhere, and what I’m inclined to think happened is that I probably left it out on my dresser and the cleaning people MM hired to come every couple weeks put it somewhere I can’t find. (I don’t think they took it, because there are a lot of other nicer things they could have taken.) At any rate, I am usually okay with trying to find things over the course of time, but occasionally I lapse back into my old panic mode, which usually involves me blowing the whole thing out of proportion (i.e.: this means that I am forever irresponsible, that I have no appreciation for the nice things my parents have provided for me, therefore that I am a bad daughter, etc., etc.). All of which means that although I sound calm, I am secretly freaking out. I am reminded of a story I never liked about my father: when he was little his grandfather gave him a piastre and he lost it and went ballistic, so much so that his grandfather tried to give him another. “No,” he said. “I want THAT ONE.” I hated it for two reasons that should be fairly obvious: 1) even as a child I was concerned with the prospect of buying love and wanted my parents to know that I would never be so materialistic that I would care what they got me (yes, I was the most neurotic six-year-old on the planet); 2) I totally sympathized with my dad and knew that he never got that stupid coin back.
3. I will hopefully write a series of entries re: my favorite Christmas CDs, and I would like to start by discussing a set we listen to with some frequency every year:
We actually have 1 and 5 as well, but they never get as much play. It should be unsurprising that as a middle/high school student, I was far more taken with traditional songs covered in a way that could be construed as “edgy” (well, if you’re thirteen) than anything else. Also that I’m a big fan of what was considered cool in the mid-1990s. NONETHELESS: AVSC2 has an absolutely incredible cover of Bob Dylan’s “I Believe in You,” by Sinead O’Connor, as well as an awesome jazzy version of “What Child is This” by Vanessa Williams (yes, that Vanessa Williams). Meanwhile, 3 features the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Christmastime,” which makes wonderful use of that joyous thing the Pumpkins do so well when they want to, as well as “The Christmas Song,” one of my favorite Dave Matthews songs. SHUT UP. Also “Christmas is Now Drawing Near At Hand,” which is probably the best and weirdest thing that Steve Winwood (!!!) ever recorded.
4. I went to look at house shares in DC this weekend, which was for real almost as difficult as trying to get a job. Demand > supply. Fortunately, I managed to meet a lot of really cool people whom I would like to see again, even if I don’t live with them. Still, though, I got to experience the open house, which is basically like a co-ed Greek rush in which everyone is desperately trying to convince the current tenants that:
- they are the most fun person there, except
- that they are totally cool and already have friends and thus are not doing the housemate thing to make friends at all and that it doesn’t matter if the housemates want to hang out with them or not, and
- that in addition to being fun they are also responsible and employed and
- will simultaneously be really clean and not care at all if anyone else is dirty.
FUN STUFF. I will have housing updates by tomorrow at the latest.
We stopped at a Vietnamese place in Arlington on the way out, and it had canh chua tom, which is probably one of my favorite Vietnamese soups ever and is often absent from restaurant menus. I think it’s kind of a pain to make. The walls were lined with pictures of American military officials, all of whom had written notes for the owner. During the meal, I think I asked MA who used to cook for the family when he was a kid, and he started telling us about the nannies and the cook and the chauffeur/bouncer (“He was like a cool uncle”), none of whose whereabouts are currently known. At least not by us. Later he said, “The owner probably knows my mom.”
“Why?” I asked.
There’s a large Vietnamese community in NoVa, and apparently it’s full of ex-military officials and high-ups – which makes sense when one considers its location. Which is the circle my family would have been in. “You should ask to see him,” I said, and he shook his head.
For whatever reason, I’ve been thinking about that man a lot, and how young my father was when he lost all of that – a loss for which most people probably wouldn’t have much sympathy. No one has any love for the bougie.
Filed under: life progress
Being without a job has meant watching more television in the past six months than I have in probably four years. Maybe five. Which means, in turn, that I now have opinions about things I never have before: Dancing With The Stars (weirdly, I sort of liked Lance Bass, and I definitely liked Warren Sapp, but that is only because of my family’s long history with the Bucs), Jon and Kate + 8 (just watched the show where they go on GMA, and decided I am over them – I am not interested in how they are famous, and I’m a little weirded out), Top Chef (better than Project Runway, and the Hawaiian former busboy looks and talks like my uncle).
But this state of affairs is about to change, because I tentatively have a job. Although I’m still planning on making time for Top Chef.
More details as things get more definite. In the meantime, I’ve still got a few side projects going. Things are getting exciting, my 친구.
Also, I have a few important questions, totally unrelated to the above content.
Q: Rock Band or Guitar Hero?
Q: What is this song? It’s driving me crazy. I keep thinking it’s something by the Cure, but I’m not sure. This clip is from This American Life, so just listen to the music in the background. I tried to use Audacity to fade out the voice, bu even after I split the tracks it didn’t work, probably because I know nothing about audio engineering. Edit: I had to use Garageband to clip it to a decent size and it took me almost an hour, so please help me out.
Filed under: life progress
This is the first time I have not actively anticipated fall. This year the change in seasons reflects nothing so much as the breakdown in my plans, my panic at the unexpected when what’s unexpected is the lack of motion in any direction at all. I’ve been home for four months now, and while I won’t say I’m not closer to a job, this is not where I saw myself. And it’s that fact, and not my actual presence at home, that I find the most unnerving.
It snowed today a little bit, an occasion I would ordinarily find exhilarating but now only a signal that I’m hurtling toward another self-imposed deadline: Election Day. For personal reasons, and I wish this weren’t the case, I won’t be spending a lot of time at home that day. Which was what made it such a convenient date to set as a goal. Now it’s just another signpost. I can’t change the world from my living room, because I have no sense of the world outside this house, outside this town, or at least it feels that way.
I’m waiting to hear back from somewhere, but in the meantime, not being possessed of anything significant around which I can center my life, I’m struck occasionally by attacks of powerful nostalgia, mostly for streets and seasons and people with whom – last year, the year before, the year before that – I felt as though I was starting to sense a world larger than the one I knew. Now, of course, I wonder what happened. How could I not?
I have this thing about finishing, which is to say that I can’t do it. I don’t finish sandwiches or the crusts off slices of pie. I read like thirteen books at one time. (And then I forget to return them before they’re due, which is why I won’t be going back to the Johnson City Public Library any time soon.) And, needless to say, I have five million projects going on at any given time.
I’m not sure that the subconscious reasons behind my failure to complete anything bear deep analysis – I sort of know what they are and they’re nothing terribly important or life-changing – but I do believe that this failure, itself, might pose a problem at some point. Which is why I am starting a new movement in my life in which I will make a sincere effort to finish things I’m already doing before moving on to other projects. To wit: THE ORANGE HAT.
The woman from the Embassy who worked with us on MSYDP (I’ll leave out her name, although, as previously mentioned, it’s not liking knowing a Korean person’s name will help you to identify them in any way) just had a baby, and I wanted to practice my circular knitting skills and make her a gift. I realize that the color of the hat makes it look like Baby’s either cheering for the Vols or Going A-Hunting (possibly deer or turkey), but I chose that hue because the hat is going to be in the shape of an orange*, which makes it both an orange hat (color) and an orange hat (shape). This will be the most delicious baby on the block. Anyway, I am planning on finishing it before starting one of the million other projects I have lined up. Largely because I don’t want the baby to outgrow it.
Speaking of the Vols (awkward segue apologies), I had a brilliant inspiration this weekend while watching yet another marching band competition. Here are the new divisions of collegiate football, as conceived by me.
TEAM NAMES: REAL
- LSU Tigers
- Louisville Cardinals
- Florida Gators
- Texas Longhorns
- Michigan Wolverines
- Oregon State Beavers
- Wisconsin Badgers
- Michigan Tech/UConn Huskies
- Minnesota Gophers (please note: there would be a separate championship bowl for rodents, with the Badgers grandfathered in)
- Oregon Ducks
- Texas (San Antonio) Roadrunners
- Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens
- et al.
TEAM NAMES: IMAGINARY, HISTORICAL, AND/OR DIFFICULT TO QUANTIFY IN MASCOT FORMAT**
- Indiana Hoosiers
- Tennessee Volunteers
- Oklahoma Sooners
- any school with the name “Raiders” or “Blaze”
- North Carolina Tar Heels
- Alabama Crimson Tide
- Western Kentucky Hilltoppers
- Purdue Boilermakers
- Notre Dame Fightin’ Irish
- Florida State Seminoles
- Wake Forest Demon Deacons
- Virginia Tech Hokies
- Penn State Nittany Lions
- Syracuse Orange
- Akron Zips
- Miami Hurricanes
- Georgetown Hoyas
- et al.
TEAM NAMES: RESEMBLE AN ACTUAL ANIMAL BUT ARE NOT FOR WHATEVER REASON
- Kentucky/Arizona Wildcats (category too broad, as many cats are wild: bobcat, mountain lion, ocelot, feral house pet)
- Kansas Jayhawks (looks like a real bird but can find no record of such)
- Arizona State Sun Devils (too cute to be as evil as claimed)
- Cincinnati Bearcats (real animal but neither bear nor cat)
- Iowa Hawkeyes (despite Scooter and Soccer’s assurances, NOT A REAL BIRD. Also, the mascot itself is a hawk, which is simply deceptive)
- and so on, and so forth.
This way, all athletic matches can be visualized as actual fights, and the odds of a gopher beating a duck in general play can be fairly speculated upon. What say you, O Best Beloved?
*Actually it’s going to be a hallabong.
**Funny story: I, too, have suffered the indignity of a vague mascot. When I was in middle school, our school’s mascot was the Crusaders (because the school’s name was King – yes, really), and during my seventh grade year we had to choose mascots for our teams as well. Almost unbelievably, the teachers selected my friend Holly’s selection: the Everyday Heroes. This is why King Middle School eventually collapsed into a sinkhole and had to be vacated.
I would like to tell the media, all of them, that I am a little disappointed in them for not devoting more serious mockery to Joe Biden, a man who, by all appearances, is the very definition of a crazy old coot. I just watched another Tina Fey skit re: Sarah Palin, and it’s not that Tina isn’t terrific or that there’s not a lot of absurdity in the Palin situation, but come on. Joe Biden told an audience that when the stock market crashed in 1929, FDR got on TV to comfort the American people. This is a man who has the potential to be the next Dan Quayle! And yet the media, with the exception of the mostly-reliable (and ever-dreamy) Jon Stewart, seems to be leaving him largely alone. When media bias starts depriving us of cheap shots, it’s time to draw the line.
Yesterday I saw Ghost Town, which I recommend in the same vein as Definitely Maybe – it’s not going to blow your mind open, but as a romantic comedy, it was just really well done, every aspect, and Ricky Gervais is awesome (duh). There was a song playing in the credits and I was like, that’s a beautiful song, who sings it? They sound familiar. It was John Mayer, of course. Some force in the universe is driving me back hardcore to the music of my past, maybe because it feels like my ego needs to be taken down a few notches. (Evidently months of unemployment hasn’t done it yet.) I’m never going to leave adolescence, evidently, especially not considering that listening to “Heart of Life” actually made me feel a little bit better than I have lately, a little less sour and stale. Look, I need to hear that it’s okay that all my plans are sort of derailed and I feel directionless, okay? Even if it’s from the singer of “Your Body is a Wonderland.” And for the record, I met him once at EarXTacy in Louisville when I was sixteen and he was totally cool, even given the fact that I spewed nonsense about how I sang one of his songs at my high school talent show.
Oh man Kenan Thompson is starring in this next skit. I am so glad he is on SNL. This is the most context-appropriate, and perfect, child-star result I can imagine.
you know it’s nothing new
bad news never had good timing
but then the circle of your friends
will defend the silver lining
pain throws your heart to the ground
love turns the whole thing around
no it won’t all go the way it should
but i know the heart of life is good
I made siu mai with my mother tonight. When she paints the lines of egg along the wrappers they have this almost Mondrian precision. Mine, on a good day, are best compared to Jackson Pollock. But I’m learning.
