Liberry Air

Friday, May 12, 2006

The best and the worst

Had rehearsal for event happening soon at my school. WonderfulKid, Heretofore WK, one of my favorite students (ever), has huge part in this event - and is envied by those who feel they should have been selected. He was picked because he's talented, he worked his butt off preparing, and he bloody well deserved it. During rehearsal WK collapsed - shaking, nauseated, white to the lips. Finally figured out (took only a couple of minutes - felt like a lifetime) that he had last eaten at lunch (6 hours earlier), hadn't had a snack, hadn't had anything to drink, and had worked vigorously in hot clothing during rehearsal: blood-sugar dive plus dehydration. So...ran to get him juice. While he had juice realized how low on fluid he must have been and turned to go for a cold water bottle.

I wound up looking straight at the kid who most thought he should have had WK's part. The look on his face has chilled my soul: he had a huge, wolfish grin - really happy. Clearly he thought it was serious - and was delighted at this kid's misery and the possibility (he thought) of getting to replace WK. It made the grin on Jack Nicholson's face in the witches of Eastwick look tame.

I've been teaching for a long time. I cannot remember ever being so infuriated, so appalled, so nauseated. It's more than a day later and I still feel ill. That kid was so unfeeling, so miserable, so arrogant...

WK is fine - went on to rehearsal today, will do the part tomorrow. I'm delighted for him!

I'm not delighted to have seen that other kid - it feels like a piece of me shriveled up or died seeing that evil look. Thank God I only have him for another six weeks before summer cuts in.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Oh, give me a break

Just got back from Nice Little Market - where I managed to not see a grape someone had dropped in the produce section. I stepped on said grape, foot went out from under me, and I did a graceful, swooping flop to the floor.

What is it with this falling on slippery crap lately??

So the ibuprofen is making the still-sore-from-before self feel better, but the dignity is wounded. Actually, wrist hurts - same wrist I landed on in February...the wrist that had just finally felt better.

The squished grape remains on the seat of my pants added such a nice touch.

Feh.

Happy, Happy,...

A very merry birthday to U!

Somehow I'm always happy about birthdays in your generation (you, sb, et al.) - even though they are also reminders of the aging of my generation.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

A good day

Today was a long-awaited event: a book study group and lecture with Heidi Hays Jacobs who is the acknowledged queen of curriculum mapping (and rightly so). The woman is extraordinary! Her work is so insightful, fair, caring...I felt unworthy to be in the same room.

The hardest part of going to any lecture, workshop, etc. of great worth is the workshop euphoria: you get all fired up to race back and implement the model you've just learned/discussed/become attached to...and then you realize you can't do it alone - and you're really unlikely (as in snowball's chance) to find acceptance among your colleagues. The euphoria turns into serious sadness, frustration, and a rage that builds, quietly but inexorably, over a long time. I sometimes wonder, in a detached way, what my limit is...and how I'll know I've reached it...and what I'll do.

Relative to that, another incredible thing happened at the workshop: a coordinator from another district is trying to recruit me. I'm still stunned.

Two of my dearest friends and most valued colleagues in years past were also there (they both work for the presenting agency) - something else to make the day really special.

As if all ofthis weren't enough: I was out just in time to have a late lunch with daughter. This would be a treat anyway, no matter how mundane the lunch (the day we sat huddled in our jackets, semi-sitting on the brickwork sill of the Jamaican restaurant's storefront, munching super-spicy patties last fall - it was a blast). TOday we went to the Thai place maybe a mile from our house (we've only gone for take-out once or twice and never eaten there). What's wrong with us??? This place is wonderful! For less than $8 each we had a huge lunch (another day lacking in diet bliss) and it was delicious. Lunch included soup (coconut chicken for her, chicken noodle with tofu and basil for me) - great! Then four egg rolls (more like spring rolls - light, crisp, excellent. We both had shrimp dishes (garlic for her, seriously spicy shrimp with basil for me. Both really great. Overall: Yum-O!!! Have to do this more often - splendid food and time with daughter - doesn't get much better!

Now have spent hours on professional growth project - it's still nowhere but I'm further along (I know - but it's true).

Maybe the "happy dance" urge will make it one more day?

Oh, and did I have a damn business card with me when the woman asked for my contact info? Nah, why carry cards (I bought the blanks - just haven't run them) when you can whip a sheet off your official Crowne Plaza Bas Mitzvah Souvenir Pad?

Monday, May 01, 2006

A nation of [the right kind of] immigrants?

As a young girl in AustriaHungary, my grandmother was stunned when two of her sisters decided to go to America. They begged the rest of the family to come with them or join them soon, before it was too late to escape. They did not. One evening my grandmother, as was her wont, snuck out without finishing her chores, instead hiding among the tall grass near the fields to read. My great-grandmother would not be able to see her; her disappointment would be postponed until later in the evening.

She also could not be seen when the pogrom engulfed the household: she could hear the shots after they dragged out her father, brothers, and other males in the household. She could hear the shrieking as the women and girls were raped. She could hear the women beg to save the lives of the small children. She could hear the rest of the shots. She could listen to the silence before the house was consumed by the flames set by the marauders.

My grandmother walked miles to the next shtetl to find cousins, their village stunned by the atrocity that taken her family: perhaps because her father worked for the aristocracy, or perhaps because they were a well-educated family (including the women and especially my great-grandmother),it had been assumed that they would be safe. The cousins scraped together enough to send my grandmother to her sisters.

When she arrived in New York, my grandmother gained entry, not as part of some treasured huddled mass. No, she understood the people around her and realized she would be sent back if she could not find a way to avoid being one of the "too many Jews that day" seeking freedom. She spoke half a dozen languages: one was the language of a large family near her - and she became their daughter, for a little while.

Was my tiny, learned, witty grandmother an illegal alien? Is that what we call anyone who doesn't fit our racist quotas on a given day? in a given year? in a lifetime or generation or history?

So who are the right kind of immigrants? Folks who already have money? People with the right kind of job arranged in advance? People who are not brown or yellow or red - anything but white? People of the right religion? People who "know their place"?

When did the people who "discovered" this land decide others were not welcome? At least that answer is easy: right away! They came, for the most part, for freedom to practice their version of religion, not to grant others the freedom to do anything else. Good old Peter Stuyvesant tossed out anyone who was Jewish - apparently he had some free time when not harassing Africans, indigenous people, or pretty much anyone who wasn't like him.

Have we changed? Not when we were limiting the number of Asians who could come, even for menial work. Not when we were belittling Italians (my husband's family was cheerfully referred to as "black Italian"). Not when we were tossing thousands of American citizens into concentration camps and robbing them of all their possessions, their self-respect, and their freedom without any evidence they were in any way disloyal. Not when we turned away the St. Louis. Not during the generations of attempting to obliterate the cultures and identities of indigenous nations. Certainly not during the quality time we've spent denying the humanity, let alone rights, opportunities, and freedoms of Africans Americans - along with any other people of color.

Now we've turned out sights on people who happen to be from Mexico. Why? Do we really want the crappy jobs they have come to fill out of desperation? Or do we just need more fuel to fire our hatred?

I'm never going to be as eloquent as Uccellina and I didn't have the sense to quote her like sb.

Better to have blogged and been rather pathetic than never to have blogged at all? Hope so.