Summer Loving

Summertime in New York, at least it's getting there.

Suddenly I have the urge to wear skirts and feel the need to buy cute sandals and I think I might even have a bounce in my step. I was walking to work this morning, feeling actually awake and happy to be going there. I had a smoothie from Jamba in one hand, my purse swinging in the other. On one hot street corner, the smell of rotting garbage reminded me faintly of Israel, and I missed it.

I was asked to be the Everett intern for the Tanenbaum Center (suspiciously another TC!) this summer and I accepted. It's a two month commitment, starting at the end of May, for 40 hours a week. The pay is semi-real, but it's clear the real payment will be in experience. The work will be a mix of sitting at the computer and editing curricula and developing new ones as well as out-of-the-office site visits where I'll learn how to assess educational programs. Plus, the Everett program aspect means that I will be meeting other interns around NY for interesting programming related to working at NGOs. Another bonus is that it's in the Empire State Building. Maybe I'll get a swipe card so I can breeze through security? My friend Leann also works there so I'll have a lunch buddy, which is good because I currently eat my Monday Chipotle's at my desk. Alone. It's kind of nice just to know I'm wanted, albeit for either very little money or by a cult. Still, Tanenbaum has hinted that they'd want me to stay on if the internship goes well, so that's a potential first job out of grad school.

Truly though, I'm a bit horrified to have a 9-5 job. What will happen to my summer? Will it disappear behind the walls of my cubicle? Will I get time to exercise, my pre-wedding resolution? Will I have any fun at all? At least if I am going to become a cliche can I be one of those office workers who heads straight to the bar with other people in suits and dances so strangely that I'm embarrassed to go into work the next day? Please?

Priya and Hope

This morning I had a gmail chat conversation with my friend Priya who's currently building civil capacity over in India. She was telling me that she was having some doubts about her chosen profession, in general aid and development work, and I could strongly relate. Because our jobs are somewhat idealistic and based on good works, we often find ourselves relying on "the kindness of strangers" or at least our dream of strangers being kind. So what to do when men yell at you on the streets of India, or car honking in Israel keeps you up all night, or your heroes die never having finished their grand work, or you just sort of doubt anything you do will make a difference?

I told Priya, there are three types of people in this world:
1) Those who see the cup as half-full
2) Those who see the cup as half empty
3) Those who say, "Fuck the glass, let's get those people dying of thirst something to drink!"

I feel like those of us in whatever form of education or development work (or both) don't rally need justification, moral or otherwise, for what we're doing. We don't need to believe in the goodness of man (or woman). We aren't insanely optimistic, some of the most cynical people are in these fields, and it makes sense because they've often seen the worst of people. And, in truth, the sad reality is our work won't make a huge difference, but it might very well help some people who need it.

I am not angry with people who think pessimistically.

But I am sad because they have lost their place in history.

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom

Lotsa Papers, Little Fun

Between the 8 papers I've been working on (1 down, 1 almost complete, 2 well into the process), I've had a teensy bit of fun.
(Since the only picture from the TC event was horrifying, I only have pictures of the Cocktail)

On Friday night TC put on a gala. I was going there in a pretty bad mood; I had been sworn at by a crazy man as I waited for my friends to join me at the corner of 125th and Broadway. Being told I'm a b**** that looks like a c*** ex-wife doesn't do much for me. I did look cute, however, as did my friends Brittany and Naaz when they eventually showed up and we headed off together. We had to cross a bridge up in 145th street. NJ looks very pretty at night, who knew? The party was at a sort of greenhouse-shaped club and the first drink was free with lots of finger foods and a strange mix of music. For a college that's 75% women, it was a pretty fun party.

I gathered up Naaz and Brittany and along with Suzana we headed back to I-House for the Indian/ Arab dance going on. It was pretty fantastic since there were actual Indians and Arabs who could really do the music justice, and pleanty of white folk like me willing to watch and learn (a little) One dance involved hoping back on forth on each foot in a forward rocking motion while pretending to screw in light bulbs with your hands and shrugging your shoulders. I did the twist instead.

Several papers later.....

Leann and Marion held another of their famous cocktail parties. I stopped in late at night with a few contributions and let the bartenders get to work. It was ncie to relax with a different group of people than I usually do, though of course some of my favorites were there too. Leann makes the most incredible food, and the others contributed with chees, bread, and famous Magnolia cupcakes. I had about three drinks and we ended the night with much needed stress relieving massages. Oh finals.

Last Interview

I had my second interview with Xxxxxxxxx Xxxxxx (the prestigious one that's not a cult). I ended up meeting with two of women who are high up in the organization. Lady A asked the predictable questions about where I saw myself in 3, 5, and 10 years. Then I had to sit for almost an hour before the next woman, the vice president, arrived for our meeting. While I was sitting I chatted with Naaz, a friend from TC who interned with the org but was leaving for personal/ managerial differences. I helped her out with her very artsy craftsy project and we chatted about our school projects and upcoming fun stuff. While we were sitting my competition came in. A very formally dressed young man named Christian. I chatted him up a bit, him not knowing that I was searching out his weaknesses to exploit. He studies history and South Asian studies at NYU. Very suspicious. Finally the vice president came in and she gave me about 5 minutes of her time. Her big question: Sell me this pencil. So I add libbed, "This is a great investment because it not only writes, but erases too. It's brightly colored so you can't lose it and it's so light and small you can carry it in your purse or pocket. And if a mall stands too close to you in an elevator, you can stab him with it." The last part got a laugh, and she asked me if I really did peace studies.

What will I get? What will I accept? What the hell am I doing with my summer? Who knows.

Interviews

With the spring coming to an end and summer just around the corner, I've got the future and jobs and money on my mind.

I've been applying for a lot of different opportunities. The ones I had hoped would be a shoe-in have turned out to be awkwardly hard, and those I was sweating seem just too easy.

I've applied for three fellowships at I-House. The one I most want is Summer Fellow, which if I got would mean I would help plan and implement summer programming for the few residents still around. I think it's a great opportunity to connect with people, enjoy NY, and hopefully I'd get to choose the flavors for the ice cream socials every Thursday. I also applied for Sunday Supper Fellow, which it turns out conflicts with my sister's wedding, so that one is out the window, no big deal. Then there's Resident Fellow, which is like a college RA (Resident Advisor) but I pretty much bombed the role-play. It would be a cool opportunity; use my multicultural class activities as programming tools, help bring in food and beer once a month for residents, act as an official greeter and not just an overly friendly person, and I could yell at people about their noise level and blame it on their other neighbors. It could have been so perfect.

* In the following paragraph the names of NGOs have been changed to prevent future bosses from googling this and potentially not hiring me due to my flippant remarks *

I have also applied for and had interviews with two NGOs that work in the education field promoting tolerance and values. The first is the Xxxxxxxxx Xxxxxx xxx Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx, a renowned organization in which I would do quite a bit of office work and some field evaluation. The pay is meh but it could be a great opportunity and they've insinuated that if I got the internship they would want to keep me on in the future. The other is Xxxxxxxxxxxx xxx Xxxx, which I was really excited about, until I realized they were founded by Kabbalah. I'm not talking 15th century spiritual Judaism stemming from the Zohar. No, I'm talking modern day pyramid scheme run by Mr.Berg and his good friend Madonna. During the interview I was actually asked about my "spiritual affiliation" and told that I could receive the curriculum before training so that I could "Buy into it and apply it to my own life." Still, I like the idea of their education program and it would be me running around NY to at-risk communities working directly with kids, and there's potential for them to send me to Israel. The pay is even better that Xxxxxxxxx (first org mentioned) and the work much more flexible. Moooo. I just got such a cute haircut, I'm not ready to shave my head and wear orange robes.

Lucky for me I don't have to make decisions until they do.

Rain, Reminiscing, and Raging Good Times

Today I worked on my TOP SECRET Afghanistan education project under the working title Come Unity. I think it's going to be pretty fantastic. The bad part is I had to go out in the crazy rain we're having today. I actually heard grown adults screaming as they rounded corners into the wind. My umbrella, who I've had since London, was mangled beyond repair. So I was walking around, umbrella half-collapsed, soaked to the waist with my sneakers practically falling off from how heavy the rain had made them. And to top it off, when I got back to I-House the elevators, which had broken due to a power outage, were still not fixed. So weighing double my usual weight and soaked, I walked up 5 flights of stairs. FEH.

Let it be known that I am way over my head in work and slowly drowning amidst my papers. That said, I have had a little fun...

Remember back in February when I went to the horrifying "dinner" with Michael and friends? It took place at a Ghana restaurant and my food was more alive than not. If not, here's what I had posted then (but with pictures!):
I was excited to join Michael and Anmol for dinner with a larger group of friends including Paul, visiting German Jan, and about 5 others. Michael chose the place, a little African restaurant (and by restaurant I mean the kind of place where there are 3 regulars who look as though they live there) promising the flavors of Ghana. It was... interesting. I ordered a peanut chicken soup and what I got was an archaeological dig in a peanut bog for skeletal remains of ancient chicken. It was successful, I found the spine! After spending time with Clucker (pictured above, my new skeletal friend, Anmol and Michael got their vegetarian dishes of Red Red (pictured right, and it actually looks red!) which was actually blue paste with oil (oh so tricky). We only ate the fried plantains that came as a side.

So it was with great trepidation and a bit of skepticism that I took Michael's proposal to go out for ethnic food. This time he suggested Turkish, and that seemed a far safer gamble than Ghanaian. So off we went with Anmol, Leann, Marion and Suzana in tow. We ended up at Turkuaz, a lovely little restaurant at Broadway and 100th. With Middle Eastern restaurants there is a tendency towards cheesiness, but this was quite nice. There were the obligatory lanterns, but I thought they were cute, and the over all tent feel was really the hook that got us there. The food was excellent; big puffy pita bread with oil, and we got cheese cigars and grape leaves for appetizers. Michael and I shared a ginormous mixed grill plate that was incredibly good and over-filling.

We had a nice walk back to I-House where we were supposed to all hang out but half the group disappeared so Leann, Michael and I sat around the main lounge making new friends with the German chocolates he brought. Youssef, a new guy from Tunisia who speaks some Hebrew since he studies ancient papyrus, joined us and we followed the pretty girls who were all dressed up to the ball going on upstairs. I ended up with Leann, Jose, and Joel and drank way more than I should have. But, lesson learned, and back to the papers...

NY Dreams and Nightmares

Last night I dreamt that a professor of mine was giving lessons on ice fishing. She was standing in front of a pool of icey water with floating blocks of varying densities of cork and styrofoam and standing on each, getting her feet wet sometimes up to her ankles as she did her scientific research. My brother showed up with my cousin Michael Wallace, which is odd since we haven't really seen Michael in at least 5 years and to my knowledge they don't really talk. But my brother said he was having a party (his birthday?) and wanted me to come. Just then I ran into Brian and we started having an argument; I wanted him to come with me to the party but he was angry I didn't want to go sky diving, the dialogue was actually pretty real. I'm fairly sure I was winning the dispute when my alarm woke me up.

Then the nightmares began. I took the 1 train to work and was hoping to make good time so I could get a coffee before getting into work. There was some sort of a problem and the ride which usually takes 30 minutes lasted about 75 minutes. It was such a hassle as the express trains kept passing us by and we were stuck in the 50s.

The area I work in isn't very industrial, but there are a few trucks around usually with workers unloading stuff. It's usually not a problem and I might get a few smiles or nods, but it's all very social. Today a man told me he could "F*** me like a bear." He then reiterated, in English and Spanish, "Oso, a bear I would be like, oso!" While as an educator I always appreciate learning new words and I am reading a book on bilingualism, I was simply not impressed. After all, the book I'm reading is "Con Respecto" and is about respecting people's of different culture through language, and in neither language was his message respectful.

After work and a little nap, I went to class at TC. On my way into the building a woman came running at me with a stroller. Due to the wall and car on either side of me, I had nowhere to go and stood still as the stroller came at me. At the last moment the woman let go of the stroller and ran to the side where she grabbed her toddler (who I hadn't seen at that point) who was running towards the cars. I grabbed at the stroller and stopped it just before it hit the wall. A lot of drama for TC and it got a few onlookers to stop in shock. Meanwhile, no thank you from the mother who's baby I saved. But that's NY.

Chinatown

The only time I had ever been to Chinatown before was to visit my Grandma Edie's old stomping ground. A few decades ago the shops which are currently selling upside down ducks and bizarrely large pineapples were once selling rugelach and kosher meat (which was very much dead and not flopping around like the fish I saw last night). So I was excited to go out and experience the real Chinatown free of Jewish nostalgia for when Hester street spoke Yiddish.

Suzana had arranged the outing with her brother and a friend, but by the time I got there I was just in time to bump into them on the street on their way out. So I struggled through the ridiculously crowded streets like a winding missile. (that makes sense, right?) to the Shanghai Cafe. I arrived just as half the group left, so I watched as Leann, Marion and Jose paid their bill. It looked like a nice enough place, definitely upscale, but the service seemed awfully rude.

The four of us walked in large circles for a bit before we finally hit the Dumpling House. It is exactly that seedy little place you picture when you think of Chinatown. Leann said it's a "crack in the wall" but I think it was more like the dirt in the crack in the wall. It's a tiny shop front where the cooking area takes up half the whole store. Everyone orders and eats at the counter while watching the cooks reuse cooking oil as they fry up and boil dumplings and sesame pancakes. The prices are incredible, just $2 for 8 veggie dumplings. The scary part is that the veggie items are more expensive than the meat ones.... very suspicious.

For dessert we ran around to find The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. The have every flavor imaginable, and some that aren't. Leann got lychee sorbet, which tasted exactly like lychee, which I don't care for. I got green tea, which I love, but I think it was much better in Japan. This was again a standing-only place and we were all getting tired. We walked over to the Chinatown Starbucks, which is really quite pretty, and sat there for about an hour. We ended the night with some very un-Chinese pubbing.

Decisions Made Well (and by me!)

I wonder sometimes about the choices I make. It can be very nice to be vindicated, even if not directly.

There are time when I am not in love with TC. In fact, I can't really think of anyone in my cohort who does. But, that doesn't mean that under all the rhetoric, terminology, and theory that I'm not learning something. I am, even if it sneaks up on me. So it's nice that TC is thought of so highly by others. If nothing else, I hope it ensures me a great job or two in the future! TC We're Number One!

I also recently read through Time Magazine on my way back from Detroit for Pesach. I was happy to see that although I am not the "greenest" or most earthy person, I'm not the worst of the greedy SUV oil-consuming polluters either. It's times like these I guess I should reevaluate my choice not to be a vegan, or a freegan. In Time they had "51 Things You Can Do To Make A Difference," and I found some of their ideas familiar. Mostly due to the fact that I'm living in NY:
Ditch the Mansion: My studio is certainly no mansion, and so it conserves a lot of energy. It probably also helps that I don't know how to cook. There was also a suggestion to do the laundry less, and I let my laundry build up beyond reason, so I'm good on that count too!
Work Close to Home: Though two times a week I do go downtown for my internship, most days I'm lucky to leave my apartment, much less my neighborhood. My main place of work, TC, is just 3 blocks away!
Ride the Bus: I don't really ride the bus, but I do take the train if I'm going pretty much anywhere. It's mass carpooling with some of the craziest, dirtiest people on earth!
Move to a High Rise: Ok, I-House is no High Rise, but it is a large dorm, and this relates right back to not having a mansion!
Wear Green Eyeshadow: I in fact own green eyeshadow, this is a trend I am prepared to embrace!
In the future, I am also open to making changes to be a better consumer and be aware of my own carbon footprint. If ever I make enough money, I would love to take Time up on their idea of Moving to London's Carbon-Free Zone, but that seems a long way off.

Woohoo & things I need to do

This is not bragging, but I just did incredibly well on my Issues and Institutions midterm. The reason I am sharing this is that I am in shock. The midterm was on the main paradigms of education development; functionalism, Marxism and neo-Marxism, and post-modernism. I used phrases like "meta-narratives," and discussed role differentiation and social solidarity vs. deconstructing social narratives and self regulation. Who am I? I've never felt so in graduate school in my entire life. I turned this paper in feeling very unsure of myself and really nervous, I had nightmares and everything, so I am pretty floored that I not only understood the concepts but actually made sense when writing about them!

My next paper for I&I will be on Israel's education reforms towards a decentralized ministry of education. The idea is that when Israel was first established, the education was centralized (same standards nation wide with the same curriculum) because they were focused on creating a "New Jew" and wanted Jewish immigrants from around the world to blend together to this new identity. After the rise in minority rights coupled with significant immigration, as well as conflict between internal Israeli communities (secular vs. religious, Arabs vs. Jews, minority ethnicity vs. majority, etc.) the ministry saw the need to become decentralized and put the curriculum and testing into the hands of individual communities. I might even go so far as to say that decentralization in Israel should be used as a case study for other nations with diverse communities, but I have not completed my research yet (or hardly started).

In Emergency Education, which began a few weeks ago, I'm completely overwhelmed. It is supposed to be a very practical course (very much focused on skills and not theory, as many of my classes are) and I want that but I am intimidated at the same time. The main grade will be a large project I'm working on in a group with three other women. We have to create an NGO and a program that can be instituted for community education with a focus on gender equality in Afghanistan.

In Human and Social Dimensions (Peace Ed) I have several projects I have to work on. One is reading Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Peace Ed's Bible) and writing a review. The thing is that although Freire created literacy programs for poor laborers in South America, his style of writing is for the most elite ivory tower, pedagogy-concerned, academics in the world, i.e. way over my head. The other criteria are a learning assessment and teaching unit on peace education in Israel (I have not worked on these much yet, at all).

In Multicultural Approaches to Teaching Young Children I have been doing a lot of fun hands-on activities. This has included a presentation on a material that addresses multicultural issues in the classroom, in which I discussed "The Boy and the Wall" which I was introduced to by Kareem when I visited him at the Lajee Centre in the Aida refugee camp outside Bethlehem. I also did Alerta activities in which I got my I-House dorm mates together and we discussed childhood games and cold remedies and I later reported back to the class. I also had to do two interviews on culture, one with a family member and one with a classmate, which was reminiscent of my old course with Dr. Leichter. Now all I have to do is a final paper, which I'm not yet sure of, and an artistic representation of a social justice issue.

April is going to be a ridiculously busy month.