Vienna Teng/Guy Fawkes' Weekend

The good news: Joe got a job bartending at BrewDog in Camden, the exact job he wanted and the only one he applied for. Only this man comes to England and lands his dream job only 36 hours after submitting his CV.

The bad news: He got scheduled to work seven closing shifts in a row, two of which fell on days that we had plans (and tickets) for events in town.

Because of this scheduling conflict, I spent last Friday and Saturday nights trying to make sense of public transportation to locations much more far-flung than normal by myself. Those of you who know me know that I am a nightmare with directions, so when I have to figure out tube and bus transfers in new places with unexpected closures or changes, I can get quite flustered.

Friday, November 1
Vienna Teng at Bush Hall in Shepherd's Bush

I met Cynthia/Vienna when we became roommates during a trip to Argentina to build houses with Habitat for Humanity in 2008. She had been enticed onto the trip because it was a Canta y Construya (sing and build) event and she was a singer and songwriter about to release her fourth album. On the night before the build began, she shocked our whole team by getting on stage during the welcome festival held for us and performing "Harbor", a song from her second album about going home. Mostly, she sang in the tent where we ate lunch, a capella or with a guitar.

The clothespin method of playing guitar

enjoying empanadas in Buenos Aires

Our Global Village team

reunited a few months later when she performed in San Diego

This trip was extremely emotional for me. It was after my dad had died and I'd lost my job. I needed to do something that was entirely separate from my regular life. 

(Someone recorded Vienna talking about the experience during a performance shortly after we got back here; someone else stole a bunch of my pictures of the trip and made this video that I just discovered today.)

When I found out that Cynthia/Vienna would be performing here in London while I was here, I knew I couldn't miss it. The venue was standing room only and it was packed. She opened the show alone on the stage, just her and a keyboard, with "Harbor." I cried. I was transported immediately back to that tent in Recreo when I spent two weeks digging a hole for a water tank and had never been more fulfilled by a day's work. I was surrounded by the people on my team and those who were helping to build their own homes and their neighbors'. In some ways I'm glad I went to the performance alone.

totally stolen from someone's flicker since my phone pics sucked

As always, the show was wonderful. I love Vienna's music in any form, but hearing her live is such a pure and moving experience. She and the other performers who work with her, especially Alex Wong, are funny, entertaining, and incredibly talented.


Saturday, November 2
Guy Fawkes' Day: Back with a Bang at Ally Pally

Remember, remember the fifth of November...

This uniquely British holiday is a commemoration of the night in 1605 when Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament by placing explosives below the House of Lords. Apparently people celebrated the fact that the king (James I) survived this attempted mass assassination by lighting bonfires all over the city. Thus Bonfire Night was born. Now, over four centuries later, fireworks shows occur all over the city (and kingdom, I imagine) for several days before and after the official holiday.

This year, festivities began on Halloween (which some people do celebrate here) and included fireworks displays on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. I attended one of the bigger shows, Back with a Bang, a return of the event to Alexandra Palace, affectionately called Ally Pally by Londoners.

The event was only £5 to attend and was sold out by the Thursday before. Inside the park there were games, carnival-type attractions, and all of the trappings Americans might expect at an Independence Day celebration. Since I had no intention of overpaying for fried food on sticks, I planned to meet Tammela and her boyfriend about an hour before the fireworks show. What I did not plan for, however, was for every part of my journey to take two or three times as long as normal. The route to my bus stop was across a park that closed early and was locked. The bus I was meant to take, which had 3 different stops on its route for Ally Pally, had been completely re-routed away from the event. I had to jump on a different line and follow some fellow revelers through the freezing wind in the hopes that they were heading the same direction I wanted to...

I arrived just fifteen minutes before the show, gave up on finding Tammela in a crowd of over 30,000, and left immediately after the show in hopes of following the crowd to the proper bus stop to get home.

crazy sea of crowd

I enjoyed the show and I'm glad I participated in the holiday even if I had to go alone. It was a fireworks show, and being that my birthday entails a fireworks show every year at home, fireworks always make me feel special.

The Mirror

I have been brainstorming for a commentary on Michael Jackson's song "Man in the Mirror" for months, maybe even a whole year. I was first reminded of this song when it was used in a unity promotional film for my alma mater last spring (the film panned through the whole school, weaving through clubs and teams and different social groups in the quad, all singing the lyrics in unison. It was awesome.) Last fall when I saw the documentary on MJ's last rehearsals, This Is It, I was moved to start collecting songs for a new classroom soundtrack to be used the next time I have students of my own. (3 years ago I created one such soundtrack for my middle schoolers that was inspired by India.Arie's "Beautiful Flower.")

First, the lyrics to the song (listen along! it's on the player at the bottom of this blog!)

Gonna make a change for once in my life.
It's gonna feel real good, gonna make a difference, gonna make it right.
As I turned up the collar on my favorite winter coat, this wind it blowin' my mind.
I see the kids in the street without enough to eat, who am I to be blind pretending not to see their needs?
A summer's disregard, a broken bottle's top, and one man's soul.
They follow each other on the wind, ya know, 'cause they got nowhere to go.
That's why I want you to know,
I'm starting with the man in the mirror.
I'm asking him to change his ways.
And no message could have been any clearer:
If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change.
I've been the victim of a selfish kind of love.
It's time that I realize there are some with no home, not a nickle to loan, could it be (really be) pretending that they're not alone.
A willow deeply scarred, somebody's broken heart, and a washed out dream - they follow the pattern of the wind ya see, 'cause they got nowhere to be.
That's why I'm starting with me!
I'm starting with the man in the mirror.
I'm asking him to change his ways.
And no message could have been any clearer:
If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change. You gotta get it right while you got the time, 'cause when you close your heart then you close your mind.
...
Just lift yourself, you know, you got to stop it yourself.
Stand up and lift yourself now.
Make that change.

One of the cornerstones of my teaching philosophy is to encourage student growth and responsibility and guide my students toward lives as socially conscious citizens and overall good people. I see my work as a chance to inspire new generations to travel the world, live with a wide perspective, volunteer and think about someone other than themselves. High schoolers in general are very selfish people because their experience and range of understanding rarely extends beyond their own school or small community. I see my job as a chance to give them something else to consider, some other way to look at the global community. I see teaching as my best chance to change the world.

Many teachers are fond of the Gandhi quotation "Be the change you wish to see in the world" because it encourages people to make individual effort toward global goals. The hardest part of that idea, however, is figuring out exactly which changes matter most to you. There are a lot of problems in the world. Disease, disaster, social injustice, poverty, hunger - they are all huge concepts that are difficult to understand and solve. The question each of us should start with, then, is this: What injustice can I do something about first? What do I care about most in my own life?

For example, I think that having clear vision is a basic human right. I know firsthand how much of a difference a simple pair of eyeglasses can make in the way someone gets through their day; eyeglasses should not be a luxury. So I donate my old perscription glasses to Unite For Sight (http://www.uniteforsight.org/) and they are sent to people who need glasses but can't afford them or access proper optomotrist's care. It's an easy way I can help out an issue I see in the world.

"Service does not mean self-sacrafice. It means giving the needs of another person the same priority as our own." (Williamson 173)

What makes me more important than anyone else on this earth? What makes me entitled to a better home or food or health? Maybe I can't solve world hunger or AIDS or tsunamis and earthquakes. I'm not a divine being. I do not have spidey-powers. But even if I can't solve the problem at large, I CAN make a huge difference in the life of another person. There are 4 families in Argentina right now who have homes because I helped build them (http://www.habitat.org/). There are at least half a dozen people out there who can see better and function better in their lives because my glasses allow them to focus. There are seniors in San Diego who have food because I helped to sort it at a distribution center and food bank for impoverished elders in the community (http://www.theangelsdepot.org/). I can start with myself. I can make a difference.

"Our needs are not separate. If we contribute to another person's pain, it will always come back to haunt us. If we do what we can to help them, someone will always come around to do the same for us. It's not enough to sit idly by while others hurt, using the catchphrase 'It's not my responsibility'... as an excuse for a selfish stance." (Williamson 168)

If I can do something to help another person, isn't it my moral obligation to do it? It's so easy to fall into selfish behavior. So far, I have not made a donation to help the victims of the earthquakes in Haiti or Chile. I should, but I haven't. I could, but I haven't. I am preoccupied by the money right now. Even though I've found pretty consistent sub work this year and have some income from tutoring, I'm worried that a full time position will not be available for the next year (or maybe two or three) and I don't want to give up the lifestyle I have now. I want to be able to buy cute shoes and new clothes and hardback books. It is selfish of me and I know it. I could justify myself all day long, but that doesn't make it less selfish that I am not doing more to help people who have endured unspeakable tragedy and are in need of real assistance. As MJ says, "Who am I to be blind, pretending not to see their needs?"

http://www.redcross.org/

2009 Year in Review

If 2008 was a year characterized mostly by big change I did not choose nor want (Dad's death, losing my dream teaching job after just one year), 2009 has been a year of making new choices for changes I want. 2008 was a year of survival until my trip to Argentina for Habitat for Humanity. That trip in many ways gave me the release I needed to start a new life for myself, to decide what I really want in order to be happy. After 11 months of grief and disappointment, it was time to change my perspective.

In December/January, I was convinced that in order to be happy, I had to effectively traumatize myself out of my comfort zone by completely uprooting and moving to a new country. I thought that if I had the courage to move to England, I would come back with the confidence to find the life I really wanted here.

I had a lot of free time during those months (5 sub days in about 10 weeks...) and I used it to read, write, and generally figure out what exactly I envision for myself in the big picture. I read and re-read Eat, Pray, Love; He's Just Not That Into You; A Return to Love. I watched Oprah. I made a vision board. (If you don't have one, get one!) Slowly, I began to change the way I look at my own life, my own choices, my own attitude. I began to break out of the patterns that had kept me lock

ed in my house for nearly a year.

(The vision board includes my goals for my life in the areas of

romance/home, travel, teaching, world citizenship, family, and self.)

The goals for 2009?

1. Be happier with myself as a person.

2. Be more social.

3. Find ways to feel worthwhile and satisfied that are not related to employment.

At first I thought I had to go out and find new friends; a daunting and unpleasant prospect. In the meantime, I wanted to be more consistent about the friends I already had. My credential friends and I started having monthly "Diva Dinners" to catch up. I started a book club without having any idea of how beneficial it would be for me to reconnect with people from high school. How was I to know that having those people in my life again would accomplish my exact goal of "making new friends?" I didn't need *new* friends, I needed people who knew and understood me already. I needed the Divas and the Lady Longhorns.

A year ago, I would've expected to have entirely new friends, a new place to live, a completely new life at this point. Instead, I have old friends, a home filled with love and support and family, and a life I had all along but am so much happier to be living now. The bullet points of my life right now don't seem like much (unemployed 26-year-old who still lives at home and is rapidly running out of savings money to live on...), but in reality I am just so undeniably happy. I live with my best friend. I am friends with my sister and get to spend time with her regularly. I have a boyfriend who makes me feel confident and happy and excited. I have learned to be happy with the accomplishments of every day tasks, rather than feeling like a failure because I don't have the job I want. If this is my starting point, I can only hope that 2010 will be even better.

Wishing everyone the peace and hope and happiness I feel this season.

Summer = Unorganized Thoughts

Went to see Julie & Julia over the weekend, the movie about Julia Child and a fan who spent a year cooking all 500+ recipes in her cookbook over the course of one year and then wrote a blog about it. Best line from the movie: "I could write a blog. I have thoughts."

Also saw (500) Days of Summer twice in the past week. Completely head-over-heels in love with the movie. So real and sad and hopeful at the same time. I connected. I want Tom as my new boyfriend. And I wish I had the courage to do karaoke.

So far (no surprise) there are no prospects for teaching jobs this year. I'm not sure if the reason the England thing hasn't happened is because I have a weak resume or because the economic situation across the pond is just as difficult as it is here, maybe worse (I prefer to assume the latter option), but either way I'm not really disappointed. Moving is a big deal for me. I'm not going to pick up my whole life and leave my entire support system for just any job - it has to be a unique opportunity to grow.

I continue looking for teaching work close to home but the prospects are bleak. In the meantime I needed something to keep my head going so that I don't completely lose it, so I've started writing again. It's been interesting getting back into it after so long. It feels like reconnecting with a lost friend. I know how to do this - write a novel? I've done it before. But at the same time it feels entirely new and scary. I'm a different writer now because I'm a different person now. The expectations - both mine and others' - are different, higher somehow. When you write as a teenager, nobody really takes it seriously so if it's awful, that's okay. But I'm supposed to know what I'm doing now. Even though I majored in Literature, not writing, and even though I teach high schoolers how to read books, not write them.

Did a single build day with Habitat San Diego this week. It was nice to be on a build site again, nice to feel like I'm doing something helpful and productive, nice to have completely sore muscles for the next two days. But it wasn't the same. I have to do another global village trip. Soon.

Belated Donner Lake pics

A view from the cabin; Roger having to cut my food because Paul "just couldn't handle it anymore" watching me struggle one-handed; a snowy hike in Vans tennis shoes and hanging onto Roger with Carol, April & Fermin; and my signature look for the weekend - dirty hair, a splint and a sling...

It Starts Now

I'm sorry, but I had to steal this idea from Miss Teacher's blog, because it's just so perfect:

Former President Bush was inaugurated when I was only 17 and was just barely getting into the whole political awareness thing. My senior class vehemently argued over the candidates and the recount and everything that went on that year even though none of us really had any clue what we were talking about. Then September 11 happened and suddenly Pres. Bush was a hero. (huh?)

The last 8 years, my entire grown-up lifetime, I have been part of the minority. My government has made me feel like I should be ashamed to believe the things I believe. Somehow I was "unpatriotic" because I don't think an idiotic combination of war with some countries and isolation against others was a legitimate foreign policy. Somehow I was labeled as "unsympathetic to our troops" because I vote for peace. Somehow I became "morally wicked" because I identify myself as a liberal. Somehow "liberal" became a dirty word. I've felt frustrated and angry and misunderstood and demoralized. My beliefs were wrong and my opinions were futile. I watched in utter amazement as the President of my country - someone who is supposed to represent me and my fellow citezens - ruined our reputation worldwide, botched the English grammar I work so hard to convince my students matters, smirked when talking about body counts and refused to admit he had made so much as one mistake. And then I watched in awe as my fellow Americans inexplicably elected him again.

2009 is the new beginning I've been waiting for in many ways. After the December 2007 death of my dad (and the most important man in my life) 2008 was a year of adjustment and refocusing priorities. The first six months were all about loss and unwanted change, the second six months felt more hopeful. 2009 is a year of deciding what I really want in life and taking action to pursue those goals. I feel inspired now. I feel my country is finally on the same page as I am (besides the outrageous passage of Prop 8 in California, but that's another discussion). It's like the air shifted. Things changed around and within me. It's like my life will forever be separated by 2 dates - the day my dad died and the day my country elected a man of vision and hope. The time in between felt bleak in many ways. The time after (my trip to Argentina with Habitat, my new inspiration and courage to make Big Moves in my life) is new and exciting.

Now, when the President is on TV, I won't feel the need to change the channel to avoid nausea. Because he inspires me to do more. President Obama. From the first time I heard him speak I knew I would follow him for as long it took for him to become president. I am thrilled I didn't have to wait long. I have hope. I know the situation we're in as a nation is a perilous one. Nothing in the next few years is going to be easy and it will all take faith and patience. But I believe. This is a person who stands for the things I believe in. Diplomacy, conservation, integrity, responsibility, family, volunteerism, critical thinking, ... Will it be easier to teach my students to value those things when there are good role models on TV?