How Far

When the world becomes smaller
How much farther do you have to go
To find things different and new?
To the opposite side of the globe?
Across the continent?
Across the country?
To the opposite side of the city?
Or, is around the block enough?
Enough to let you see something new?
Enough to expose you to another way of life?
Enough to broaden your view and
Make the world just a little bit smaller?

Easter Traditions

Easter is one time of year when I am truly aware of how much I have left behind to live internationally. It has always been an intense family time for me and trying to recreate pockets of our traditions, while helping me to maintain some sort of contact, does not make it a holiday like at home. Sometimes I think that it just makes me miss my family all that much, although I won't stop trying to recreate bits and pieces of what made Easter in our house.

To start with I always knew that Easter would mean at least three evenings at church, sitting in a pew with my mother and sister. Feeling close to them as we went through the true mystery of our religion. I try to get to mass for Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday or Easter Sunday. Somehow sitting through at least two of these services on my own just highlights my loneliness on these days.

Then there is the food aspect of our holiday. Any Easter has to include my mom's (she would say Aunt Ida's) homemade rolls, hard boiled eggs dyed to bright Easter colors, and jello eggs. At this point I have hope of one of the three turning out completely, even though I've made every attempt for all three this year. I felt sure that the rolls would turn out, and though they taste right I guess they are either too light or too damp and won't raise as they should. It's hard to color your eggs when you can only buy brown eggs (making me realize that Easter is the only time I'd voluntarily buy white eggs at a grocery store). So far only the blue ones have turned out, and that after almost an hour sitting in the dye (yes - at least I've learned to combine 1 tablespoon of vinegar, 20 drops of food coloring and some water to create my own egg dye). So that leaves the jello eggs, which admittedly I haven't tried yet. But I did save my egg shells, carefully cutting off just the top sliver and shaking out the egg whenever I used some the last few weeks. It was perhaps a bigger success to keep anyone in the house from throwing away my empty egg shells. Jello packages from the grocery store seem to have provided me with everything else I needed to fill them up. It only remains to be seen if they will actually turn out. I have my hopes for this one. After all I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be Easter in my or my sister's mind without the jello eggs.

Then there are the memories to contend with. I imagine my sister heading over to my mom's house on Sunday, and am sure that a Easter egg hunt will be part of the day's festivities. It brings back fond memories. Every year my father was the one that hid the eggs, and as we limited the hiding space to the living room and occasionally the dining room there were a limited number of places where the eggs could go. The last year I was home for Easter I felt as if I could do my egg hunt with my eyes closed and still find them all. I remember one year my brother-in-law complaining on the phone that they had been to my parent's for Easter. Dad hid the eggs, my sister gave him a 10 minute head start....and she still found almost twice as many eggs as he did. All I could think was that he should have called me and I could have talked him though it on the phone, then maybe it would have been a fair competition. I can still reel off a list of at list ten places that an egg will be: balancing on one of the side supports of the coffee table, up in the circle below the light bulb in the lamp, tucked behind the fold out doors in the dining room, under a crystal glass on the room divider, in the corner between the fire place and the sliding glass door, in the random granite ashtray now relegated to a random place, in a glass pitcher on the dining room windowsill, in one or two of the plant pots, balancing on top of a few glasses in the room divider, in the corner of the wall and speaker...I can see myself there.

Oh the memories. Even though I'll be spending Easter along again, I will try to focus on the good memories I have from Easters below, always knowing that the memories can't replace what is missing from Easter this year - family.

Young Adult Fiction

So I've recently embraced a love of young adult fiction. This may be because I get most of my books out of school library (which is excellent especially for being in Paraguay), but mostly because it just seems like they are better stories. I guess if you're going to keep a teenager reading you have to write a good story. Some of my favorite are The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, all of the series by Tamora Pierce (both of these first ones have strong female heroines), the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling, the Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer (yes, even though many of my friends have said they're horrible I'll speak up and say I enjoy reading them), and my most current reads the Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander. Any one out there have some other recommendations for me?

Quote of the week

Obviously, you develop a certain amount of thick skin, to let the typical teenage stuff about "It's boring," wash off you. But, ultimately, your ego is on the line. Your identity is on the line. What do I do for a living? I'm a teacher. And so if you get negativism or disinterest or hostility form the class, then that's a real blow. That's a comment on my whole being. i don't know if I'm more vulnerable than other people, but I get my self-worth from this job. And if I'm bombing, then I criticize myself...

-Jessica Siegel
from Small Victories by Samuel Freedman

Thoughts on a first week

It is hard to believe that I'm back at school already (a brief five weeks after leaving school early in Turkey), but I am happy to report that I survived my first week of student in my new school. More than that I am realizing why I made the choice to change schools. I wanted a smaller school, which I definitely got as I teach all of the grade 9 and 10 math classes (there is just one other math teacher in the high school, who also happens to be one of my housemates). I wanted the freedom to teach how I wanted and try out some of my crazy ideas. I've tested that freedom (successfully) already...taping down a coordinate system on the auditorium floor to check and see if my students remembered how to plot points, pulling out individual whiteboards to force each of my students to attempt a problem, putting letters up all around my room to test students ability to name lines, planes, and points meeting specific criteria (I can't tell you how often I heard the question, "Miss, why are there letters all over your room?" although they were surprised when I pointed out there were some on the ceiling as well!). I'm not sure if I'll be able to stay as creative but it is nice to know I do have the freedom to do what I want. Now I just need to work on learning those 90 new names.

What happened to yes?

With eagerness they come
Never told "you can't do that"
or "are you struggling?"
Visions of being a basketball playing
trash collecting doctor in their heads
Recalling their parents saying
"You can do anything you set your mind to"

Put in a group of like minded others
energy feeds off of others
and one idea explodes
into group actions

A little later the child is told "calm down"
"This is how I'd like you to do it"
"You're close, but not right"
and suddenly all actions are graded
If I get a B does that mean I'm not good?
Should I stop trying? Let the best do it?

Why do we stifle the eagerness?
Does it matter how good something is
if the person enjoys it?
Who determines what good and great are anyways?

Perhaps the Renaissance man
need to be re-embraced
with an emphasis on
anyone can do anything...or everything
as long as they will just say
"Yes, I can."

Endings are just new beginnings

An ending is just a new beginning
It is hard to believe that I am writing my last note from Turkey…or perhaps I should say about Turkey as I am no longer there and have actually been gone for a month now. There are so many things that I still wanted to share with you, stories about the crazy wedding dress windows, my love/hate relationship with the airport close to school, the little princes preparing for their circumcision, the giant boots I found on campus….sadly it seems that those are stories which will remain untold. And so I will end my three years of messages with a list of some of the things that I will miss about living in Turkey.
10. Being able to pick up a grilled cheese sandwich from a small kiosk on the side of the road.
9. The goldfish guy on the road leading away from school, stacked up on the hood of his car shaded by an umbrella recently.
8. The large Trojan horse on campus…I still don’t understand why this needs to be in a playground, but it always makes me smile.
7. The crazy things that people sell on the road or the sidewalk…gummy supermen that flip down a wall, wind up chicks, chargers, blow up dalmatians,…I think if you watched long enough you could find almost anything.
6. Being able to surprise people because I can actually speak some Turkish. It doesn’t take must at all to impress the Turks…after all Turkish isn’t what you’d exactly call a common language.
5. The skyline, there is something about all of the minarets that just makes Istanbul seem like such an exotic place. It will take quite a bit to beat that.
4. Browsing the fruit and vegetable market in Kurtkoy, soaking up the cacophony of sounds and colors. It was a sad day when I realized it would be my last visit.
3. Walking downtown during the call to prayer and finding that as soon as I leave the sound of one mosque I enter the audible area for two more.
2. Riding the ferry across the Bosphorus. After three years this is still one of my favorite things to do.
1. The people of course. Friends and coworkers and strangers who are always willing to lend a helping hand and aid in whatever way they can, whether that means answering endless questions, telling me where to get off a bus, or just keeping me company in stressful times. I will dearly miss them all.