This was a fantastic night/morning (it is 3:06 am).
When you volunteer to spend all day at a workshop on diversity and multiculturalism on a Saturday again, make sure you once again make up for the lost you-time by having a tiny wine-and-cheese-and-Nintendo gathering (I guess it won't be spontaneous as it was tonight if I am planning it now), and stay up until the weeeee hours -- as long as it takes until you have done not-work longer than you have done work.
(It did say "note to self" above; what did you expect?)
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Monday, January 23, 2006
Doing my thing...
I like to do my own thing. I have several "things" and at my best, I do my thing regardless of what others are doing. I like traveling, going to the movies, seeing jazz shows by myself. I like laughing my ass off at a comedy show by myself. Sometimes, I prefer doing these things alone because I truly like the unrestrained me. At a jazz show, being without someone interrupting with, "I'm going to the bar, do you want anything?" feels much more authentic. And while I love sharing laughter with people I love, I don't mind seeing comedy alone because then I don't need to wonder why the person sitting next to me is not laughing at an immensely clever joke (or worse, wonder how come the friend sitting next to me did laugh at a horribly offensive "joke"). I like bumming around in a country I have never been to alone because I blend in more easily than others (it's my ambiguously ethnic look and my ability to fake fluency in a foreign language until I run out of useful vocabulary), and I have an inherent sense of when to be spontaneous and adventurous and when to be safe.
I want more friends who know when to let me go and when to reclaim me -- people who go out and do their own thing, who sometimes invite me along, and sometimes explain without an apology that they're doing something alone or with another group of friends. I want more friends who know to call occasionally out of the blue just 'cause... I guess that's one reason I am on here, one reason I write to strangers persistently, one reason I thought it more productive to write all this down than grade another essay or two...
People who can let a woman do her thing are people worth knowing. People who can go and do their own thing unapologetically as well are people worth knowing even more.
I want more friends who know when to let me go and when to reclaim me -- people who go out and do their own thing, who sometimes invite me along, and sometimes explain without an apology that they're doing something alone or with another group of friends. I want more friends who know to call occasionally out of the blue just 'cause... I guess that's one reason I am on here, one reason I write to strangers persistently, one reason I thought it more productive to write all this down than grade another essay or two...
People who can let a woman do her thing are people worth knowing. People who can go and do their own thing unapologetically as well are people worth knowing even more.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Avuncular Guidance
I know the difference between a house and a home. I do not have the former, but I have several of the latter. Having multiple homes means that sometimes, I feel homeless; ultimately, I experience this feeling as an advantage. Not belonging in any one place has made me believe I can belong anywhere. Different Me's appear in different places, and I am slightly different in each language I speak. My wit is sharpest in English, my diction makes me strangely vulnerable in Turkish. Or is it the other way around? In Spanish, I am the badass who sits next to the cab driver and chats the whole way as though the fifty-something-year-old man sitting a gear shift away from my were my peer (and as though I were fluent in Spanish).
And when I cannot make sense of my own experience, I read some James Baldwin. Put into his words, inherent complexities seem manageable; I feel so lucky to have him in my life, like a distant uncle, maybe I cry.
And when I cannot make sense of my own experience, I read some James Baldwin. Put into his words, inherent complexities seem manageable; I feel so lucky to have him in my life, like a distant uncle, maybe I cry.
Friday, January 20, 2006
"How was your day?"
[KRB] on Friday, January 20, 2006 at 2:28 PM -0800 wrote:
Dear [Pelagic],
How was your day?
Love,
[KR]
I JUST sent my last interim report in.
Today felt good despite the interims craziness.
We had our MLK Day assembly today -- my favorite meeting of the entire school year. Of course, I cried. I need to process everything, and I am not sure I want to right now. I need to look into how come I cried so much this year -- was it really that much about the content of people's narratives, or was it more about where I am right now? I know it's both. There is so much pain in these stories people share 40 years after MLK's speeches. I know there is progress, but there are a lot of steps backwards, too. One of the speakers today, my friend Tommy, who is the Project Coordinator, did a spoken word piece he just wrote in response to last night's decision to shut down some public schools. His elementary school, where he stood in front of his whole community 16 years ago in a play and acted the part of MLK, which, incidentally, was the first time he started making the conscious commitment to doing the work that we do now around fighting for social justice, was one of the schools that got "cut." With it and several others have gone the public education in the neighborhood (in Western Addition, "Fillmo'") where Tommy grew up.
These meetings give me hope and make me feel a sense of pessimism at the same time. They make me feel proud and ashamed at once.
Then, I go into class and talk about Othello and his multiple identities in Venetian society, how he kills himself like a soldier defending a Venetian against "a malignant and turbaned Turk," and all sorts of things come up for me emotionally. I try to get the students to realize the complexity of Othello without spelling things out for them, and it's a vulnerable place to be. Painful and fulfilling at the same time.
In "The Theater of Ideas," we talk about what it takes to connect with another human by talking about a character who achieves (?) it through an act of violence.
It's a good day. Intense topics, exhausting, draining, but at least meaningful. At least I have not been sitting in a cubicle. At least at the end of the day, I get an e-mail from a graduate asking me how my day was, and I write this.
tk
_________________________
The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers.
:: James Baldwin ::
Dear [Pelagic],
How was your day?
Love,
[KR]
I JUST sent my last interim report in.
Today felt good despite the interims craziness.
We had our MLK Day assembly today -- my favorite meeting of the entire school year. Of course, I cried. I need to process everything, and I am not sure I want to right now. I need to look into how come I cried so much this year -- was it really that much about the content of people's narratives, or was it more about where I am right now? I know it's both. There is so much pain in these stories people share 40 years after MLK's speeches. I know there is progress, but there are a lot of steps backwards, too. One of the speakers today, my friend Tommy, who is the Project Coordinator, did a spoken word piece he just wrote in response to last night's decision to shut down some public schools. His elementary school, where he stood in front of his whole community 16 years ago in a play and acted the part of MLK, which, incidentally, was the first time he started making the conscious commitment to doing the work that we do now around fighting for social justice, was one of the schools that got "cut." With it and several others have gone the public education in the neighborhood (in Western Addition, "Fillmo'") where Tommy grew up.
These meetings give me hope and make me feel a sense of pessimism at the same time. They make me feel proud and ashamed at once.
Then, I go into class and talk about Othello and his multiple identities in Venetian society, how he kills himself like a soldier defending a Venetian against "a malignant and turbaned Turk," and all sorts of things come up for me emotionally. I try to get the students to realize the complexity of Othello without spelling things out for them, and it's a vulnerable place to be. Painful and fulfilling at the same time.
In "The Theater of Ideas," we talk about what it takes to connect with another human by talking about a character who achieves (?) it through an act of violence.
It's a good day. Intense topics, exhausting, draining, but at least meaningful. At least I have not been sitting in a cubicle. At least at the end of the day, I get an e-mail from a graduate asking me how my day was, and I write this.
tk
_________________________
The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers.
:: James Baldwin ::
Sunday, January 01, 2006
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