To eat turkey and give thanks.

I am thankful for my tiny room that only fits my big bed with orange and purple mismatched sheets.  I am thankful for my open door at night letting in the cool noisy and calming new york city breeze during this very warm and enjoyable (and perhaps scary?) autumn.  I, in turn, must be thankful for my random mysterious bug bites.  I am thankful for my poorly painted bright blue wall, which Arlena (my mom if you haven't read my earlier posts), says looks like an old school new york city bathroom blue color.  (I am thankful that painting is not going to be my career...I am terrible and still don't understand painter's tape).  I am thankful for my Arlena's overly blunt honesty that I often cannot begin to understand.  I am thankful that I have such a beautiful mom amazing enough to cook an entire thanksgiving dinner with five different vegetables and homemade cranberry sauce for two people.  I am thankful for organic juicy turkeys from a farm out east.  I am thankful for good wine and cozy gold beeswax candles.  I am thankful for left-over coconut pie in the mornings...and for leftover turkey after an eight hour waitressing shift (eaten cold of course against Arlena's wishes). 
I am thankful for my small sometimes dysfunctional family and thankful for my dreams of a big family with may kids and pups.  I am thankful for my sometimes painful past and for my dear friends who have illuminated the beauty of families that can and do work effortlessly.  I am thankful for my love for my beloved black labrador mutt in heaven and thankful for the day that I can adopt another to call my own. 
I am thankful for good people, genuine good people.  I am thankful for these good souls that I have met in New York in Europe in the Middle East in Africa and for all of those I have yet to meet in my travels.  I am thankful for those that inspire me to live humbly...those living hoping to simply make things better for someone else. 
I am thankful that I have an opportunity to express my thanks and for my words.  I am thankful for imagination and stories and books and philosophy and wisdom and teachers and young kids who want to learn and those who don't know they want to learn yet who will challenge me all of my life.  I am thankful for then and now and tomorrow and you and me. 
Give thanks, cheers. 

In Response to Stip's World

Dear Alexa,

So this in response to your CST post which I somehow missed...being that you know me pretty well and are one of the two friends that I have since starting this English major thing a few years ago, it comes as no surprise to you that similarly, I did next to nothing to prepare for the exam.  Granted, I assumed that experiencing two full semesters of Anton, how could we not be prepared for any exam questioning our expertise of English language/literature.  When I think about it however, it makes all the sense in the world that the genuine knowledge that we gained from any worthy professor like Anton would in fact not prepare us for such exam since everything we know and love about these professors goes against what these bullshit exams live by. 
With that off my chest... just as you, Mike and I have endlessly discussed, no test or anything "standardized" will dictate how well you or I will teach.  I love how Mike wrote that it is really more about character (thanks for throwing me into that category btw, haha) than anything else.  The way you teach and the way that I teach will by no means be remotely similar, yet that does not mean that we will not find our own successful vibe in the classroom.  What does a multiple choice test asking you to read pie charts and write an essay all of us would expect our high school students to be able to write actually assess?  The only thing that it assesses is whether or not you are willing to spend about 300 bucks to get certified, thanks New York state! 
Anyway, if we fail...well it would be almost funny, maybe hilarious until we realize we have to sit in a chair for another three hours trying to figure out what New York state wants to hear from its future teachers. 
Cheers to (hopefully) never having to take a standardized test again!  Now let's figure out a way to make that happen for our future students....?

-Jules.

Real Life Decision?

I decided within the past week that I am going to apply for the Peace Corps.  I am not sure if my timing or my intentions or my perceptions of what it will be like before, during, and after the experience are at all accurate, yet one thing that I am certain of is that I have to figure out a way to get my manager of three months to write me a solid recommendation letter because applying is an absolute must.  I am well aware of the fact that I cannot definitively make even the most mundane decisions on a day-to-day basis (just another pleasant nuance of Julie) yet it almost frightens me how sure I am about this particular new endeavor of mine. 
Naturally my mind starts to race about this...what if I don't get accepted?  How embarrassed would I be?  What is the interview process going to be like?  What country would they want to put me in?  The most intimidating potential question that I cannot seem to get out of my head however is what if somehow the world aligns and I get offered a "real job" for next year and have to make a decision between the Peace Corps and a "real life" job.  In my head I know that there is nothing more "real" about life than the experience that I would get out of the Peace Corps, but I know that the pressure from "real life" responsibility and my inherent desire to get my English teaching career started will definitely create a painful internal conflict. 
All of that aside, how could I say no to devoting two years of my life to a cause outside of anything that I can even imagine comprehending at this point in my life?  I could potentially work to enhance the education, health, agriculture, and essentially the lives of countless individuals that I do not even know yet; while at the same time gaining fluency in a new language, expanding my 'weltanschauung' tenfold, and meeting a ton of amazing people willing to spend time and energy and life all for someone and something else.  What is more "bon vivant" than that?  Remind me to read this post if I make it past the first interview. Cheers.

Some things Arlena never does...

My mother never forgets to let me know how much she loves me.  My mother Arlene, or Arlena if you know that she spent her 20s in Germany and was called Arlena for ten years of her life, is the most amazing woman that I know.  My mother has raised my brother and me by herself for the past fifteen years and she would not have wanted it any other way.  While my mother was growing up, she never had a real mother figure because her own mother was an abusive alcoholic.  Since experiencing such a demeaning childhood, she always knew that that having her own kids to love would be something that she absolutely had to do in her life.  My mother never forgets to tell my brother and me that there is nothing that she wanted more in her life than having her own children to love and to raise. 
My mother never lets me down and has worked extremely hard all of her life to be the beautiful person that she is...working several jobs through college to pay for it (since her own mother told her she would never go), moving to Germany all by herself and learning the language so she could be a better teacher there, getting her Master's degree with two little kids at home to take care of...the list goes on.  While my mother never forgets to remind me how important it is to work hard, she also never forgets to remind me how important it is to play hard.  Arlena is well on her way to 60 and she has more energy to have a good time than half of my 22 year old friends. 
I don't even know what or where I would be without Arlena and I don't think I want to know.  I hope that my mother never forgets that. 

"No Passengers"

Since moving into the city and still commuting to Adelphi three times a week and going to Brooklyn to do observations twice a week and exploring areas of Manhattan on the weekends, to say that I am on the train/subway a lot is an understatement.  Usually when I tell people of my current situation in response to, "So what are you doing with your life now?" they usually meet my explanation of my train riding with, "Oh that really sucks."  To be blunt, paying for the train is probably the one thing I do not enjoy about the commute and it still beats filling up on overpriced gas (although I really do miss my Turkish friend at the gas station). 
I remember last year when Kyle Dargan came into my Contemporary Poetry class to do a reading with us (awesome) he was talking about the interesting phenomenon that is trains/subways.  He was talking about how once in a subway for example, you enter this vortex of space that you share with countless random people, which seemingly operates outside the constraints of time and other real life factors.  For the time that you occupy that subway, that is your community; all aware that you are essentially unaware of what is happening elsewhere...cell phones don't even work.  You trust the subway to bring you exactly where you need to go and trust that the people you share the space with will abide by the unwritten subway rules, even the guy doing back-flips in the middle of the car to try and get a few bucks somehow abides by these "rules."  You occupy a space that you call your own, a small seat in the third car,  yet the community of riders is so extraordinarily vast.  People watching is totally acceptable and arguably promoted as a subway "rule," yet conversing with strangers is few and far between.  I do love the random conversations you can end up having during these rides on the train/subway.  They are so rare that I know that there's definitely a story every time I've had such random conversation.
Most of the time however I love just sitting and reading or listening to music or playing with my phone and enjoying one of the few moments during the day where I let myself relax enough to think about nothing or think about everything.  I love having a designated amount of time to just chill before I go to school and am reminded how confused I am about life and what I am doing with it.  My train riding and subway riding have replaced the shower as the number one place where I get the most thinking done and for me this is an absolutely necessary part of "bon vivant."  Appreciate the moments you have to be with yourself and your thoughts alone.  Riding the subway and trains with different people everyday reminds me how big the world is yet the solace I find there as a single passenger is absolutely fab.  

Forgotten Days

It couldn't have been more than three hours after Michelle went to sleep that she woke up with a sudden feeling of anxiety.  More than a few nights a week for as long as Michelle could remember, she couldn't make it through the entire night without waking up.  Once awake, she would lay there staring blankly into the darkness of her room trying to imagine what excuse she could use to go into her parent's room just around the corner and wake them up to ask if she could sleep with them.  Michelle knew that she didn't even have to ask because once they heard her coming, her Mom would tell her Dad, "Michelle is here Dan."  At that point her Dad would basically sleepwalk out of bed while Michelle jumped into the warm spot that her Dad was just in.  Michelle didn't know what it was but it was something about laying next to her Mom that made her feel safe and warm and instantly calm and happy enough to fall back asleep without any problems.

This night was different however.  Michelle still woke up at her usual time in the middle of the night, but while she was staring into the darkness deciding if she was going to say that she had a nightmare or that she fell off her bed, she heard soft crying coming from somewhere.  At this point she was more than wide awake and wanted to just run out and find her Mom and make sure everything was okay.  She jumped out of bed and moved towards her bedroom door when she tripped over Max.  Max, Michelle's dog, was the most beloved thing Michelle had been able to call her own at seven years old.  As usual, he was barely startled when her small frame tripped over him.   Seeing that Max chose Michelle's room to snuggle up in for the night, her nerves were immediately calmed.  She decided that she could listen for a bit longer before running to her mom, grabbing a blanket and laying on the wood floor snuggled against Max.

Once Michelle stopped moving around and got comfortable with her dog, she could really start to listen.  The crying had not stopped, yet she heard something else now too.  Her Dad was talking over the person that was crying, yet it was less like talking and more like scolding, he was angry.  Michelle knew that tone and knew that it had to be her Mom that was crying.  Michelle loved her Mom more than anything and couldn't control herself when she too started to cry and held Max even tighter.  It seemed like a thousand questions started running through her sleepy head: Why was her Mom crying with her Dad in the living room in the middle of the night?  Why was her Dad using that same tone of voice that he usually uses when they are in the middle of one of their countless fights during the day?  Why wasn't her Dad trying to make her Mom feel better?  Did he try and make Michelle feel better when she cried?  Michelle couldn't even remember right now because her chest was so tight.  She had this sinking feeling she couldn't explain and was so happy that she had Max with her at that moment.  Michelle just wished that it was a regular night and she wished she could go and lay in the big warm bed next to her Mom and fall back asleep until she heard her Mom's alarm go off at 5:05.  All that she knew was the Max hadn't even woken up yet so that must mean that everything was still okay. 

family matters, minus steve urkel

So my brother works for a music entertainment company which has kept him living on a tour bus for the past few months.  However, this past weekend the show he was working was in nyc so luckily he, my mom, and I found the time to have dinner together for the first time probably since I graduated in May.  I've never had that family that comes home every night and hangs out together and chats about the awesome panini you had for lunch and the weird thing Tom said at work that day.  We all let the busyness of life win the majority of the time...all generally function on different and totally wacked out time schedules... and all always wanted chicken, spaghetti or just a bowl of cereal for dinner on different days of the week.  These kinds of things were a part of our routine, our traditions if you will...sitting down for dinner tonight however felt pretty good.  My brother and I are like peas and carrots (stolen from Gump) and I certainly love and miss having him around.  We were talking about the next time he was going to be back in New York and suddenly my mom blurted out, "Dan and Joan are not going to be in NY for Christmas by the way, they're staying at their house in Florida this year."
I can't expect you to understand the weight of this statement but just know that I could write a whole bunch o blogs about the "bon vivant" experiences I've had at Dan and Joan's house on Christmas every year for all of the years I can remember.  This is huge and shocking and sad and weird and bad news for my brother and me.  Dan and Joan are not even technically "family members" but because my mom has maybe 3 and a half 'normal' members in her family and my dad is foreign (so his family has their own very French Christmas traditions), D&J are those friends of your parents that you wish were actually your family and call them aunt and uncle anyway.  I still cannot seem to shake it from my mind which is consistently focused on: no but seriously, what are we going to do for Christmas?
This whole situation has me once again thinking about and questioning life's changes and comfort levels and traditions and what we're all "used to" and why we as human beings absolutely live for routines in so many ways.  Is it the end of the world that we won't spend Christmas eating home-made lasagna and drinking Jack Daniel's when we're cold sitting on the porch playing some strange game where my brother and I can use our brother/sister skills to dominate? No, I guess it's not...I mean there have been changes that we have dealt with before...like the first Christmas my parents were not together but both came to the Christmas party at D&J's and the first year my dad decided to move to Florida and not be at the traditional party and the year that I was dating Edmund and left early and missed out on a whole bunch of bon vivant at D&J's.  It's just weird to think about...maybe next year my brother's going to be in Louisiana with his girlfriend's family for Christmas and maybe next year I'll be living and working overseas and will secretly almost be happy that D&J aren't having their Christmas party because at least I'll know I won't be missing it.  There's really just no way of knowing.  It's weird when the same week you turn 22 on the 22nd and you're in grad school not loving it and you're having a sit down dinner of Chinese food for the first time in months with your family and you find out your Christmas tradition has been 86ed and you're legitimately sad.  Cheers to another part of my "bon vivant" experiences in the future involving being a bit more open to such changes.  My mom is cute though, she said: "I'll cook anything you want on Christmas!"  followed up by a quick "Well, maybe."