I have anxiety that moving back to the States will reverse the progress I’ve made.

A friend of mine passed along this list of her brother’s experience as a teacher abroad. To be sure, he’s not a PCV, nor is he in Bulgaria, but his experience sounds familiar.

Note: I changed the language to —the native tongue of the country—, so as not to polarize a specific group.

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Per the meeting on Wednesday, teachers have welcomed feedback from their students this morning.
The following is a list of what was collected:

Consensus: Cancel the class at 1:00pm such that there is only one English class per day.
Majority of the student body wants to cancel review week (12/05-16/05). However, a few groups want 2-3 days of review week. Based on these findings, we could make review week optional. In other words, cancel review week but teachers must have open office hours for students to ask questions.
Change test score grades so to pass all students with a B or an A.
Give students who were caught cheating full marks.
Teachers must allow students to chat on cellphones during exam.
Invigilation of exams and grading must not be done by Native English Teachers.
English quizzes must only be written in —the native tongue of the country—.
Give students more money per month for attending school.

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I may be in the library seven days a week while working eight hours a day, but nothing compares to the trials of teaching. Survive that, survive anything. 

The usual genre of yappers weren’t in the library today. Without the distraction of inconsiderates, I wrote 1,000 words of argument. I feel like this about the whole situation:

Snap Snap: Painful Realizations of Becoming an Adult

This is a story I have told several times, but never written down.

Four years ago I had a bachelor’s degree in history, an acknowledgment I did not want to follow my families’ career path, and the finalized touches on my Peace Corps application. I was finding myself.

My middle sister had two degrees (Sculpture and Graphic Design), and an acceptance letter to MIT. She was finding herself as well.

My father was consumed in his interests of the time, Egypt and a sense of pride in his daughters.

The above combination called for a family vacation- minus a few members.

Whenever I tell stories of my father I tend to get the same, predictable response, a chuckle and the request for a meet and greet. I explain it would take years for them to understand and thus experience the eccentricity.

This is a story of two of his most prominent characteristics: forcefulness and appreciation.

My father tends to get on paths. Not plural paths occurring simultaneously; one path, going one direction, on a train with no breaks. And his appreciation for appreciation is no different. Be grateful, be grateful, be grateful.

On vacations, his force and need of gratitude come into full circle through photography. He must have a picture of everything, and he must have a physical body in each shot so as to show the “scale” (his word, not mine) of what must be captured. In short: ten days of stand here, do this, look there, point at that, all under the pretext of, Don’t complain, be grateful!

On this particular day, on this life-changing day, I got sick. I will never know if it was the photography, food, heat, pollution, 5am wake-up calls from the mosques, or just my general lack of introvert-friendly environment. It does not matter, I was sick.

In true fashion to my father’s ability to solve any problem, (another of his virtues) he found me a doctor just hours before our three-day camel trek through the desert. Because after all, I would not fully appreciate the journey if I was unwell.

The doctor was kind, but his English was limited. His medicine seemed legitimate, but the packaging was in another language. The shot he wanted, and did, inject into my arm was large enough to stick into the hip of a horse, and the time needed for the medication to pass through the needle into my skin was sufficient to learn the Arabic alphabet.

To deal with the pain, but more likely the uncertainty, I clinched my eyes shut. As I held them closed I thought, this will be over in no time and you don’t ever have to think about it again. However when I opened my eyes I did not feel pain or uncertainty, I felt uncontrollable anger.

My father thought the moment would be something we would look back on; a moment we would remember through laughter. He knew I would need to appreciate the story, and in order to do so he knew he needed to be forceful in the moment. How could I see the greatness that was to be documented?

He was in my face with the camera.

Snap snap.

Instead of this being the day I got a shot the size of a banana from a foreign doctor with foreign medication in a foreign country, it is the day I screamed derogatory, explicative language at my father. My domineering, appreciate your privileges, father.

I am uncertain who was more surprised: Me, at my own reaction, my sister, just wanting to smooth over the situation, my father, who stood up speechless and walked out, or the doctor who calmly plead, “Please. Don’t yell. At your father.”

Looking back on the situation (if I can get past my cringe-worthy embarrassing disrespect) I have two feelings: gratitude and strength. This was the first time in my life I stood up to my father in a way that he could hear me through the noisy train running full steam ahead. And because I succeeded in slowing down the train once, I have never had to do it again. Poetically speaking.

Part II.

One of the joys of getting older is realizing how similar you are to your parent.

Because I demanded my father delete the picture of me in my moment of distress, I cropped out Kristin’s look of death. However I find my look of utter cluelessness hilarious.

On Kristin and I’s trip to Belgium, she had a run-in with a pickpocketer. We subsequently had to cancel her credit card.

I found it valuable to document the painful and unpleasant experience of her dealing with credit card companies and international phone lines. It was going to make for a great story! She would appreciate the memory! I had to take pictures!

Snap snap.

A day later while looking back over the photos she explained that she was not my biggest fan in this moment, but then she remembered me telling her the story above, which made her laugh. Otherwise, I would have remained oblivious to the correlation.

And that is why my best friend has her masters in psychology.

Generalizing About the Weather

This morning, on my way to the library  I wore: a scarf, a hat, a sweater, and my winter coat.

I’ve learned something about this continent.

When it comes to the weather, it’s divided between North and South. When it comes to politics, it’s East and West. But with culture, you can’t divide it into two equal parts, and it’s therefore just easier to say they’re less confined than the rest of us.

May 5th

It’s Saturday. I woke up early, got dressed, had a coffee and a bagel, and then made my way to the library.

No! It was closed. No!

My motivation was for nothing.

Now I’m at home pretending I can refrain from distraction.

Today is liberation day in the Netherlands.

I do love these unforeseen holidays that pop up in foreign countries.

Just not when they interfere with my self-involved plans.

Anyways, happy Cinco de Mayo.

Andrew Bird’s Near Death Experience Experience

You used to be like toffee, 
Between the kitten’s teeth 
You used to build arid shelters out of sticks and leaves and
Spend the whole day underneath.

You used to be like copper 
Pliable but strong, 
You used to smile and nod, say “you’re right,” be polite, 
When you know that everybody’s wrong.

So you dare the plane to crash, 
Redeem the miles for cash when it starts to dive
And we’ll dance like cancer survivors 
Like we’re grateful simply to be alive.

 

A fellow Peace Corps Volunteer passed over this gem.

Ivory Tower: 

From the 19th century it has been used to designate a world or atmosphere where intellectuals engage in pursuits that are disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life. As such, it usually carries pejorative connotations of a wilful disconnect from the everyday world; esoteric , over-specialized, or even useless research; and academic elitism, if not outright condescension. In American English usage it is a shorthand for academia or the university, particularly departments of the humanities.

I’m just being combative. Minus a few unmentionables, my classmates and certainly no professors have ever behaved this way. Yet another reason the Dutch are enjoyable.

Adult Spring Break Continued

Kristin and I did a lot of walking. The pictures are a collaboration of what we found striking.

Amsterdam, Utrecht, Brussels and Antwerp.

We met on the back row of a sorority we never really belonged to.  We made it out wiser and grateful for the experience. We’ve dissected every frivolous, while slightly embarrassing boyfriend. We’ve compared family chaos. And perhaps the most valuable, we’ve explored and supported each other while finding our new selves in the next stage of it all. 10 years long.

As Kristin entitled it, this was Adult Spring Break.

Adult Spring Break is so much better than College Spring Break.

Here is a quick overview.

Museum Districht

La Cathedrale Saint Michel

Le Grande Place

Le Pavillon Chinois et la Tour Japonaise

The Royal Greenhouses of Laeken

Atomium. 

La Cure Gourmande.