and the year begins...

ok, so this is the first installation of my (hopefully prolific) series about my first year of teaching in an american kindergarten in shanghai. in order for everything that i say this year to make sense, i am going to begin by giving some background about me.

i was born and raised in lincoln, ne . my family is fairly average - middle class; white; two mildly overbearing parents; two siblings, one older, one younger; formerly a cat, currently a dog. my family is pretty close and we tend to stay close to our roots. i love them dearly and would have a pretty hard time being where i am were it not for their help and support.

i've wanted to be a teacher since about the 4th grade and i've been teaching since the 5th. the grade level and subject matter are still evolving, but i can't imagine doing or being anything else. i always kind of assumed that i would do the college thing and then graduate, get a job, get married, have kids, settle down. the american dream. and maybe i will eventually. but about a year and a half ago, my life took an interesting turn. it happened while i was doing a study abroad down in costa rica and simultaneously trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. i travelled a lot while i was down there and discovered that i love traveling, seeing new cultures and learning about how they see the world. and i realized that i wanted to be able to continue doing that, even after the study abroad was over.

which led me to africa. for whatever reason, i have this burning desire to go and spend some time doing whatever i can to help there. really help. and it suddenly occurred to me that there is absolutely no reason why i can't go do that. it seems obvious, but this was a landmark realization for me. i don't come from a family of world travellers and i had never really considered doing anything outside of getting a job teaching in the states. the idea of moving to a foreign country to teach was kind of huge.

my next thought, of course, was that it's going to be expensive to go teach in africa if i want to go with any sort of program and i'm not exactly rolling in the dough at this point in my life. this thought was immediately followed by, you can make a lot of money teaching english in japan. or china, that would be good too. and thus my current life was born. i pretended to think about it for awhile, as much for my benefit as everyone else's, but pretty much as soon as the thought was thought, i was in. and i think it shall be one heck of a ride.

the crazy half

girls are freaking crazy. i don't care what anyone says. we are a little bit insane. between the hormones and the emotions and the occasional effects of the moon, it's over for stability. i can go through 10 emotions in an hour. on a good day.

now, most of the time, i play damage control and keep my mouth shut or just stay in when i'm feeling especially nuts, but occasionally i get ahead of myself and things sort of erupt; leaving an unfortunate friend/witness with nothing to do but stare at me with a look of bewilderment and maybe try to talk me down.

equally as unfortunate is the train wreck feeling that i get while it's happening. i can see the crazy coming and i know it's going to be bad but am somehow powerless to stop it. any logical, rational thinking is gone and all that's left is overwhelming, consuming emotion. all i know is that this doesn't feel good and i think that maybe, somehow, spewing the crazy in my head for all the world to see will make it better. generally, it doesn't. perhaps there is a moment of mild satisfaction, as with any good release, but it is immediately followed by the realization that i'm going to be really embarrassed about this tomorrow and i should have let that blow over in my head.

which leads us to the aftermath. my friend is looking at me like i'm crazy, because, quite frankly, i am, but they're my friend so they're also trying to look concerned and understanding. and no one knows quite what to do. the outburst was entirely irrational to begin with, which means that no amount of talking about it will help, because you can't fight irrationality with logic. it's like trying to reason away a phobia. everyone knows that tiny little spider is harmless but the phobic freaks out anyway.

and maybe that is the way it goes with emotional eruptions as well. you know it won't help but you just can't contain it. perhaps there is some internal need to get it out in order for it to blow over. maybe the expulsion is an important part of the process. i don't know. i'd like to think that if i could just wait long enough, i would, at the very least, be able to approach my emotions with logic and understanding and perhaps discuss them in a rational, functional way. i have yet to perfect this technique. instead, i am occasionally forced to hang my head, apologize for my crazy and walk away, hoping that my friend wasn't just faking that understanding look.

Texas Quote Wall...

Some little gems of wisdom and amusement mined from the millions of statements made during our brief time in Texas:

"Pardon my language, but I feel like a goddamn hippie." - Kim
"Can I tell you a secret? I'm wearing Nathan's underwear." - Kim
"Just be nice." - Nathan
"Just keep eating flies." - Kerri
"Different boats, same rock." - Kerri
"She probably won't again, becuase really they only go good with nothing." - Kim
"mmm...dinner in a tube..." - Kersten
"Shawarma King." - Kerri
"You say that now, but you'll wake up craving giraffe." - Haley
"It's like, over for this plantain." - Kim
"It's just her face that bothers me." - Kersten
"So, in case you're ever wondering, I can hold ten Ikea catalogs in one hand." - Kersten
"I hate America, but that's a pretty common theme in my life." - Kersten, with powerful seconds from her roommates
"Dirt is free, man. It's the earth; it's everyone's." - Kim
"February is when you get ready for bikini season." - 94.5 The Buzz
"Yeah, that shirt is kind of gay." - Ajit
"I respected you a lot before but now you're right up there with Krishna." - Kerri
"Drinking has no limits, when you're an alcoholic, cowboy." - Kim
"I'm not wearing pants." - Kerri
"They lose elderly people a lot down here." - Kersten

Things I Learned in Texas

• I’m not a big fan of Ethiopian food.
  
• I am a big fan of Persian and Thai.
  
• I love sticky rice.
  
• And Italian frozen yogurt…with mango on top.
  
• I have never really experienced humidity.
  
• In Texas, all good things come in a strip mall.
  
• The freeway is an exciting yet dangerous place.
  
• High stakes standardized tests ruin education.
  
• Pre-made activities are a teacher’s best friend.
  
• Keys to classroom management: keep them really busy and give good directions.
  
• You can’t force a kid to care about his education.
  
• It’s hard to care about education when you’re worried about that gang across the street.
  
• Bahá’ís are generally pretty cool people.
  
• I like art and art museums…a lot.
  
• I’m a sucker for cheap books.
  
• I take better pictures when I’m not surrounded by photographers.
  
• I should look into an ESL certification, I think I would like that.
  
• I, apparently, am the opinionated one. I have yet to determine if this is a good or bad thing.
  
• I can live with girls…and like it.
  
• As long as the traffic signs don’t explicitly say you can’t, you can.
  
• U-turns are a beautiful thing.
  
• The pledge to Texas
  
• I think the world would be a better place if we let the Bahá’ís take over; divinely inspired or not, Bahá’u’lláh seemed to know some things.
  
• It’s hard to start fresh but even harder to say good-bye.

more than a meal

the other night my dad and i were trying to find a place to eat, which is harder than you might imagine in houston, and we ended up at this great little persian place by my apartment. not knowing anything about persian cuisine, we each ordered a stew that sounded good and sat back to see what would happen. upon receiving our food and sampling both meals, i was struck by how indicative of our personalities were our food choices. my father's was very tomato-y and robust and just, well, him. the second i tasted it i knew that it was a perfect dish for him. mine, on the other hand, was a sweeter, nuttier, more exotic set of flavors in a very unstew-like format that would never work for my dad, but which i enjoyed greatly, as much for its novelty as its deliciousness. it was a perfect metaphor for our lives. the traditional, robust, nebraska stew meets the nutty pomegranate chicken.

it was the sort of thing that i want to wrap concisely into a beautiful and moving photograph, in order to be captured and shared forever. except that the important parts weren't the least bit visual and i don't know how to juxtapose flavors and personalities into an artful composition without losing their essence.