Holmesian Truth

How do you explain to a little kid why -1*-1=1? In other words, why does a negative times a negative equal a positive? I liked this explanation from Dr. Math:

So the real question is,

   (-1)(-1) = ?

and the answer is that the following convention has been adopted:

   (-1)(-1) = +1

This convention has been adopted for the simple reason that any other convention would cause something to break.

For example, if we adopted the convention that (-1)(-1) = -1, the distributive property of multiplication wouldn't work for negative numbers:

   (-1)(1 + -1) = (-1)(1) + (-1)(-1)           (-1)(0) = -1 + -1                0 = -2

As Sherlock Holmes observed, "When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

I wonder if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was thinking of negative numbers when he wrote that line. 

I also liked how Dr. Math pointed out that visualizing was not the same thing as understanding. Wait...would analogies count as "visualizing"? But I think almost everything we learn is through drawing analogies- mapping from a known set to an unknown set. 

Mommy! *Whimper whimper*

Food poisoning incident #3. I've got to stop eating out. Damn dirty Kurdy foody.

KG Reading Assessment

"Ok, Zerin, what does this word say? Sound it out."

"H-u-g-s."

"Makes what word?"

"Shit."

"No, Zerin! H-h-, not sh-! Try again: h-u-g-s..."

"Shit."

"No, Zerin, please don't say that! Sound it out: h-u-g-s, hhhuuugz..."

"Hugs!"

"Very good, Zerin, good girl."

This may be one reason why I was found laughing out loud in the hallway today, if you happened to pass by. Every few weeks, we have to administer reading exams to the kindergarteners. Basically, I call them out one-by-one and have them read a few sentences and sound out some words while sitting in the little kiddy chairs in the drafty hallway. It wasn't as funny when one of them kept spitting all over my face as he tried to pronounce the words.

"Bleh! You have got to stop spitting all over me, Walat!" I cried, as I gingerly wiped my face with the back of my hand, praying I wouldn't get sick yet again. He just giggled gleefully, the little doofus. Sigh.

All the same, they are adorable.

I have discovered some interesting things about the way kids learn to read through my experiences as a KG teacher. Sometimes, they read by sounding out each letter and just stringing them together into a word. But a lot of the time, they just either look at the word for a few seconds, or sound out the first couple letters/get the gist of the sound, and then link it to a word they've heard a lot in class lately, and then make the educated guess. They are not so much "reading" as recognizing the word. Does that distinction make sense? I suppose that's what we are really doing when we are "reading". Hence our ability to read words even when all the vowels are eliminated. 

My First Hijab

Today I bought a hijab at Lenga bazaar and took a passport picture with it for Iran. The photographer said I look like an Azeri girl with the black hijab on. I think I look like a ninja.

The Other Side of the Fence

Yesterday was an unusually warm, springy day. I spent the afternoon chillin' on my balcony with my guitar, and chatting with my left-door neighbor, the Afghani-American who's been teaching with the school since its inception three years ago. Since the beginning of the year (August), I've seen many a neighbor come and go from this room to my left. First there was the Lebanese soccer fanatic, who decided to move upstairs during the hot season because he wanted an AC that worked. He's the one who gave me much good counsel on how to teach and also on the structure of soccer tournaments. Now he lives upstairs with his wife and two beautiful kids, and will move away to Lahore, Pakistan for a new post in a couple weeks. He will be missed. 

After he left, Khaled, the chain-smoking, bean pole-thin engineer occupied that room for a while. He was serious, loyal, and loved to give whimsical little gifts, but my opinion of him took a bit of a nosedive when I discovered the ease with which he said he would cast off the ring from his left hand, once it was placed there. Hm...people need to get their priorities straight. After Khaled came two engineers from Lebanon who were here on temporary assignment to fix the kitchen upstairs.  One was cowardly and uninteresting and laughed at everything because he didn't know what else to do, and the other was a Sleezebag. Good riddance! I thought, when their day of departure arrived at last. By this time, I was feeling wary around anyone with a Y-chromosome, and so when the next occupier moved in and stopped by to say hello, I deemed his eyes a little too bright and eager, and immediately put up a wall between us, so he wouldn't get any ideas. To this day, all we say is “hello” and “hey”, and it is so much better this way. 

Then one day, I was passing by to do laundry upstairs, and the door was wide open and inside was a girl! This was S, the Afghani-American seasoned teacher from the Bay Area who is my twin sister's namesake. Fairly tall, thin, with large eyes, sharp, angular face heavy with make-up, and high-lights in her layered bronze locks, she looks much older than her 24 years. It's hard to believe we are the same age. But no matter, she is friendly and makes amazing chai tea from scratch with a purported “secret ingredient”, and yesterday, we climbed mountains together. 

I was perched on the ledge that divides our balconies with Felix and a cup of her black tea. She sat on a chair with a bunch of papers in her lap, but the grading was going slowly as we enjoyed this lovely, leisurely, spring afternoon. The conversation took a pause, and my gaze fell on the security fence that stood about 50 feet in front of us, winding all around the campus, and creating a barrier between us and the rolling mountains that give us balcony-loitering teachers such an amazing show every sundown. 

“I've always wanted to climb over that fence, but it's actually a lot taller than it looks,” said I. Not only was it tall, but the footholds were too narrow for the width of the average human foot, and the material was weak and thin wiring, so I wasn't sure it could hold my weight. So many reasons not to climb the fence, let alone the fact that it was placed there for security purposes and manned from little outposts by guards with Kalashnikovs. 

“Is it barbed on top?” asked S.

“I don't think so.”

“Let's do it.”

“What, now?”

“Why not?”

Why not? I went inside, threw on sneakers and a sweater, and came back out. We hopped over the balcony and ran across the parking lot and down the small dirt hill that led to the fence. Hm...I thought as I looked up. The fence was built in staircase fashion because the campus grounds rose uphill, with a stone foundation that provided a ledge to step on that also rose with the fence in staircase fashion. I stepped onto the lower ledge, had to stretch my left leg way up to reach the upper ledge, held onto the fence, and pulled myself up. Now that I was standing on the upper ledge, the top of the lower fence was totally accessible. I threw my right leg over it and straddled the thin wiring, thankful that I was not a guy. The wiring was so thin and weak that it was shaking under my weight, but I ignored the shaking and reached down with my right leg for the upper ledge on the side of the mountains, and once I was standing with both feet on the ledge on this other side of the fence, it was cake from there, two hops away to solid ground. I waited for S. to climb over and then we ran up the mountainside. It was rocky terrain, and anyone with knee problems would have had to tread extra-carefully. 

We reached the top and strained our eyes at the village afar. Our next mission, we decided was to hike all the way to that village and have tea inside one of those houses. S. chose the bright red one, and I chose a castle-like yellow house with random turrets that so do not belong on a house, but one sees them all the time built into these mansion/castle-like houses in the open fields of Kurdistan. They make me think of the Weasleys' house- as if the builders were aiming to make them look like normal Muggle homes, but failed to grasp the full idea, so that there was something slightly off-kilter about them. Random, incohesive parts from different architectural time periods, different materials, and different types of buildings squished together to form a semblance of modern Muggle housing. I loved these misfit castle-houses of Kurdistan as much as I loved the Weasleys' house, and have always wanted to enter inside one of them. 

We continued scoping out the hills. On the next hill over, there was a tiny, gray, stone-brick shelter with sandbags on it's makeshift roof, as well as a larger trailer-type shelter behind it. I ran down the hill and up the slope of the next one to explore it, nearly twisting my ankle over the rocks. Circling behind the stone-brick shelter, I found a door and kicked it open. Inside was a hole-in-the-ground toilet with a generous pile of dried-up poop inside it. Siiiick! I ran away. There was no other sign of life neither there, nor in the trailer-type shelter behind it. Among the grass and rocks, though, there were dozens of disposable blue razors scattered about, as well as a man's shoe strayed here and there (but never in pairs), burnt-out cigarette butts and and a lighter, a half-consumed pack of pills, and an empty, unlabeled bottle. I took one last glance at the horizon and turned back to rejoin S. 

One of the guards had spotted us and was heading toward us with his gun swinging around ambiguously in his hand. Was he angry or not? We weren't certain, so we sat on the hillside, waiting for him to pass. He turned out to be harmless, as they all do. While we waited, though, Matt Damon came out to throw out his trash and saw us sitting there nonchalantly on the other side of the fence. “How'd you guys get up there?” As we watched him climb, we wondered how he would fare with the straddling the fence part, but genius that he was, he stepped right onto the fence instead of straddling it, and easily sidled his way down the other side. The three of us sat on the mountainside and contemplated bringing beers and grub next time. As the sun began its daily descent, we shivered even under our sweaters and hoodies. Soon, we were making our own descent down the fence, and back to the other side.

10 minutes later, I climbed back over- with Val this time- to catch the sunset. We wandered over the rolling hills with an opalescent egg on one side of the sky, and a hot pink globe on the other, which disappeared quickly and inconspicuously behind the white clouds. I showed her the shit pile, and she told me a riddle:

“John looks at Annie. John is a married man. Annie looks at Robert. Robert is an unmarried man. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person?”

I'm so mad that I fell for the trick!

Later that evening, we ventured into English village for the first time ever. It was like an episode of the Stepford Wives. Why would you purposely build an American/British suburbia, with nice neat rows and cul-de-sacs, where all the houses look exactly alike? Hell if I know, but the house party thrown there by the International Relief Committee was really fun. We danced, played hopscotch on their large-tiled floor, and met lots of new people from all over the world who worked in international relief organizations. Inevitably, we came away from the party laiden with business cards and opportunities and new friends.

Codeine-Induced Dreams

What in the world was in that cough syrup? I thought codeine was supposed to be a mild opiate...Do mild opiates induce wild and vivid dreaming? Here are the two that I remember:

My co-workers and I were hanging out outside our balconies. I turned toward the mountains and exclaimed at the view. Suddenly, everything had turned a light muddy color, as if a photoshopper had clicked on the sepia-tone option on the scene before me. The mountains were of this color, and so was the sea- for now, we were no longer standing in front of our balconies, but on a sandy shore by the sea. The sky was filled with thin, white clouds strips that were scattered all the way down past the mountains and into the sea. I stood amazed because I had never before seen clouds scattered in this manner, descending so low into the Earth.

Suddenly, the clouds began melting. They oozed down from the coffee-tinted sky and morphed into strange, penguin-like birds, still misty and hologram-like from their cloudy nascence. Curious, I started approaching the misty penguins. They were so cute! I thought. Rather than shying away, one of them waddled toward me, threw itself onto my right leg, knocking me down, and latched its beak onto my calf. I lay there in the sand, crying out for help, and one of my co-workers came and tried to pull me by my arms away from the murderous penguin. When he saw it wasn't working, he got up and walked away to go find a first aid kit. You bumbling idiot! I thought. Just pry the penguin off with your hands, you ninny! I lay there in the sand trying to reach down and pry the crazy bird off myself, and woke up suddenly. I was face down on my couch with my legs in the air, crossed and really tense.

I swear, this dream has something to do with my kindergarteners. Awww, look how cute th- argh! ARGH! They're trying to kill me! Get them off me! I realized I've compared my KG's to several different species of animal by now- sheep, puppies, and now killer cloud penguins. Believe me, they are all of these, and more. Sometimes I wish I could just give them each a boost of codeine, or a quick pinch of the tranquilizer, but neither is allowed, which is why I have to resort to insidious means of making them sleepy and more manageable, such as this phonics-friendly lullaby (sung to the tune of “Hush little baby, don't you cry”):

Shene sells seashells at the seashore

Shahan sells fish at the seafood store

Hush little baby, don't you cry

Mama's gonna buy you a fish with no eye.

Shhhhhhh....shhhhhh....

Shene sells seashells at the seashore

Shahan sells sheep at the butcher store

Hush little baby, don't you cry

Mama's gonna buy you a sheep with no eye.

Shhhhhhh....shhhhhh...

In my next dream, I was shopping around at a Costco-like warehouse, when suddenly, I saw my first grade teacher from Arlington Elementary. She saw me a moment after I saw her and called me over, immediately pulling me into a giant hug. She was so glad to see me, she said. She'd always wondered what had happened to me in all these years (it's been 18 years!). She gave my tummy a friendly, nostalgic rub, saying she'd always loved that tubby watermelon tummy of mine (Yea, yea, I was a chubby kid, let's all forget that now). We wandered around the store, catching up, and suddenly we weren't inside Costco anymore, but walking along South 74th street, my childhood street. It was nighttime, and the navy sky was clear of clouds. As we walked past my old apartment, I pointed it out to my old teacher. “This is where I used to live, and remember that corner where old Mrs. Manacough used to stand every day to help us cross the street?” When I parted from my old first grade teacher, I felt regret. I'd wanted to take a photo of us together, but totally forgot, and what if something happened to her before I saw her again?

I woke up soon after, and thought about this dream. I don't remember being particularly attached to my first grade teacher, or any of my kindergarten/primary school teachers really. I was always a shy kid, and not much of a hugger, or an openly affectionate person. I began thinking of my kids, and what sorts of impressions I was leaving with them. How much of everything I do for them would stay in their memories 18 years later? All these songs and games I make up, the stickers, balloons, and other prizes I give out from my “magic coat”, the special objects I bring into class to show them. Shells, bells, chestnuts, imaginary ice cream cones, and cd's. I barely remember anything from kindergarten myself- naptime, bible verses, learning my address and the alphabet, and my teacher's wedding, during which she cried, and I sat there in the pews wondering why. 

Right now, as their teacher, I make up a huge part of their world, just because they spend more time with me than almost anyone else, even more maybe their fathers who are busy with important jobs. I even got a call from one parent last night because his child wanted to say good night to me before going to bed. Yet, I know that 18 years later, few of all these impressions will remain in their memories. The memory landscape, from such a young age especially, is like an archaeological ruin. You find bits of pottery here and there, broken chunks of columns, ruins of an empire that was once grand and whole, but which now only shows remnants of the whole experiences of the past. Early childhood experiences, like empires, they come and go, leaving only fragmented testaments to whole days of hard work and stress and fun and crying and laughing, playing and learning. 

Sometimes it feels like a waste of time because of this fleeting nature. But then I remember that there is nothing in the world that stays with you forever. Everything and everyone is subject to the wearing effects of time. Look at what remains of Persepolis in Iran, or the great Incan empire of South America, and especially Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, aka Iraq. What they have left is a crumbling citadel-turned-slum. Teachers, friendships, and crushes come and go; empires come and go; and if you want to wind the clock up way back, whole species like neanderthals, and dinosaurs and the lives of stars- they all come and go. And later perhaps the universe itself will go. Beyond that, there is no time, of course, so coming and going becomes irrelevant.

Back to reality. I got two whole days with no killer cloud penguins...Peace out! (Time's a-tickin'.)

Dananananananana...

There's a place called "Batman" in Turkey!

"On November 7, 2008, Batman Mayor Hüseyin Kalkan began looking into the possibility of suing Christopher Nolan, director of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, and Warner Bros., distributor of the films, claiming the studios had been using "Batman", the name of the superhero, without permission from the city, and "placing the blame for a number of unsolved murders and a high female suicide rate on the psychological impact that the film's success has had on the city's inhabitants." No lawsuit has actually been filed."

"Midnight, Meet Drama." The Naming of Kurds

February 1, 2009

What's the cutest thing you've ever seen?

Kindergarten pillowcase race! They were like little bunnies hopping across the floor in baby-sized sacks. Hop-hop-hop! Hop-hop-hop! So, so adorable. Some couldn't get the hang of it and kept getting their feet tangled inside and tripping. Others reached the end, and just stood there confused, like ...now what? Why are they making us do this? Hehe. I know kid, sometimes grown-ups make you do senseless things like hopping around in pillowcases. Trust me, you look ridiculous(ly cute), and it'll come in handy later on when you're trying to pass a highway alcohol test. See, watch, I can hop for miles in a pillowcase without falling! Tally-ho!

Last Saturday, we held a carnival-type event in the large gym for all the Kindergarten and preschool students. I wore my Halloween costume and clowned around with the kids, took candid pictures, painted faces, and finally met many of my kids' parents, not just their drivers. I found out that one of my Mohammeds- the really intelligent, skinny one with huge deer eyes- is actually neither Kurdish, nor Iraqi- he is Algerian! I also learned that Liya's mother's name is Jwan, with a soft French “J” sound, and it means “pining, as for a lover”- literally. Isn't that lovely?

The Kurds have an interesting naming tradition. Like hippies who give their kids literal names like Summer, Rain, and Flower, instead of names that just remotely mean those things, the Kurds christen their babies with literal names (that, or else with the usual Muslim names like Mohammed, Ali, Ahmed, etc.). Jala's baby's is called Hema (the Kurdish word for “midnight”); there is a girl called Frishta (translation: “angel”) in my grade 2 class; Balkwareen, the girl I met in Duhok, means something like “falling leaves”; Diyar means “clear, vivid”; Jotiar means “farmer” (not sure why you'd want to name your baby Farmer!); There's a terror-child in grade 1 called “Mountain” (Chia); a girl named Shirin, which means “sweet”; Shano, who is the splitting image of her father, the school accountant, means “drama/play”; her two younger sisters are Tablo (”painting”, like the French tableau) and Savo (”soap”- another strange one); Zozan, one of the Kurdish-American teachers here, is the Kurdish word for “Meadow”.

As a kid, I remember doing the girly thing and browsing forever through the list of baby names in the middle of my mom's huge English-Korean dictionary, wondering things like: why would you give your kid a name that means “lame girl” (Claudia) or “bitter” (Mary)? Anyway, when I was young, my favorite names were always changing with the wind, but as I grow older, my preferences have become more steadfast, and in particular, the list of favorite names has held steady over the last few years, tending toward the poetic hippie/Kurdish tradition of names that conjure up immediate mental images of a beautiful summer's day, or an open field, or a little stream winding through a forest. 

Of all the Kurdish names I've come across so far, the one that translates as “Midnight” is probably my favorite. It's so mysterious...so “dark angel”. But I also like the one that means "Meadow", just because I like the English equivalent, and Shano because it's against the grain, ie: not in line with the usual nature theme. According to Niroj (”New Day”), the prevalence of nature-y names among the Kurds reflects their longtime nomadic existence. Like Bedouins, they would just wander from pasture to pasture with their sheep, going where the grass grows.

It's a Small, Small World

Woah. The world is way smaller than I imagined. What are the chances that I would run into a lawyer in the Moose Lodge in Kurdistan, Iraq, who

(a) was from my hometown of Tacoma (born and bred!), and

(b) worked with my brother! Care to guess who it was, J? (Hint: First you worked with him, then against him.)

It's a small world aaaafter all, it's a small world aaaafter all, it's a small, small world...

Timelessness

January 21, 2009

Yesterday, I went for a run on the treadmill at 11 at night. There was no one else in the gym- just me and Bon Jovi. Running is such a mental sport. The minutes just drag on and on at glacier pace when there is nothing to occupy my senses besides my sweaty reflection, but when there is a pair of earphones stuck in my ears, connected to an ipod nano playing “It's My Life (it's now or never!)”, suddenly the minutes melt away reasonably quickly, my energy level shoots up tenfold, and I feel like Rocky training for the big match on the Philadelphia museum steps. Or like Sydney Bristow chasing after an SD-6 foe in her stilettos and ridiculous(ly cool) wig. 

After the run, I stretched outside to something slower and the music made me want to dance, so I did. It was nearly midnight and no one was watching save the few stars winking down from the black sky, so I was free to balancey and pas de bourree, to twirl and leap around with abandon up and down the stairs and curbs and on the smooth asphalt of the parking lot. Sometimes I like to pretend I'm a ballerina. 

Eventually, I pulled myself up over the rails, and onto my balcony, but did not feel like going back inside yet, so I sat on the ledge (where I used to play my guitar during the hot, muggy evenings) holding my knees and listening to Italian opera, so magnificent and melancholy, until my eyes grew heavy with sleep. It was a school night, but I would not get into bed until 2 in the morning- an irresponsible choice, sure, but besides pretending to be a ballerina, I also sometimes like to do things according to the way I feel, and not according to what the clock says I should be doing. What would the world be without clocks? 

My evening without clocks:

Someone else would have been in the gym at 11 at night. People would go running at odd hours of the day instead of thinking it was crazy to be pumping iron or doing cardio in the dead of night. I would have stopped sooner on the treadmill because there would be no clock to justify my mind's claim to my tired body: just one more minute! (which is usually a lie anyway). Perhaps, someone else besides the stars would have been watching from his balcony so I would not feel so free to foolishly pas de bouree away. And I would not have known that I had gone to sleep at an unreasonable hour, only that it was the sleepy hour. My cornbread would not have arrived 30 minutes late for the Obamabash we had earlier that evening. There would be no “earlier” to speak of; there would be no concept of “late”. I would have continued strumming and singing on top of my white dresser in the echoey hallway much longer. Then the cornbread would never have been made in time for the Obamabash, and I would have missed his inaugural speech entirely. I would never be late. Hallelujah!

Inaugural Speech Coverage Live, On Al-Jazeera!

January 21, 2009

Ooh, so close! I totally thought Obama had quoted Aaliyah in his inaugural speech.

“...dust ourselves off, and begin again...”

but he said “begin”, not “try”. I should have known that he would choose a revolutionary over an R&B star as his quote source. Oh well. Regardless, it reminds me of when Jodie Foster quoted Eminem at our graduation ceremony. 

Though this was Obama's day, my favorite moment of the entire affair came when Reverend Joseph Lowery took up the podium to deliver his benediction and ended with a color inventory:

“...we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right.”

Heehee! What a poet. (Don't you know it?) 

Waiiiiiit a minute...what is a red man? Is that a shout out to drunkies? Santa Claus? 

Didn't Dick Cheney look so old and weak in that wheelchair? There ain't no escaping time and old age, even for the Wizard of Oz. Except through death. But there's definitely no escaping death. I learned that from watching Final Destination 2. And 3. 

In the Times: A Doctor's Perspective

I often talk about what it's like for me, as a teacher, to have to deal with a bunch of 4- and 5-year-olds in the classroom. Here is another perspective: what it's like for doctors to have to handle them in the hospital setting. 

But the age-old parental job remains.

And that job is to start with a being who has no thought for the feelings of others, no code of behavior beyond its own needs and comforts — and, guided by love and duty, to do your best to transform that being into what your grandmother (or Socrates) might call a mensch. To use a term that has fallen out of favor, your assignment is to “civilize” the object of your affections.

My favorite child-rearing book is “Miss Manners’ Guide to Rearing Perfect Children,” by Judith Martin, who takes the view that manners are at the heart of the whole parental enterprise. I called her to ask why.

“Every infant is born adorable but selfish and the center of the universe,” she replied. It’s a parent’s job to teach that “there are other people, and other people have feelings.”

Notice the qualifier "parental" at the very top of that exerpt, as well as the possessive "parent's" in the last sentence.  In the beginning, all children are wild. Some are wilder than others. Kindergarten teachers, pediatricians, and I'm sure many other sectors in the work force would be a lot happier if all parents did their parental duty by taming their wild children. As they say, though, it takes a village...something something. Go ask Clinton (first name Hillary).

Follow the Cancerous Road

As we walked through the U.S. aid compound- past the generator, past the small grocery with the 7-11 sign on its storefront, past more uniformed men with guns- I looked up at the night sky scattered with constellations and located Orion's Belt with his 4 extremities. It was the only constellation I knew how to locate, and only recently learned how to at that. As we neared the bar, we heard the music blaring from within the walls even before it came within view. I looked down at the ground and noticed the extreme lumpiness of the asphalt.

“Look at the ground! Doesn't it look...cancerous?” I said, struggling to find the right word.

“Cancerous? What a funny way to describe asphalt.”

We shoed our way over the cancerous asphalt, threw open the door, and were met by a blast of toasty air and musical notes. Ah, the warmth! It was a most welcome warm welcome to the Edge Experience #7, characterized by death-defying darts, vicious biting, and classic American dancing, hurrah! Several sandwiches were made-  a delicious Angie sandwich, a NY-style sandwich,...alas, the Brits would have none of it so we had to go without the Marmite flavor. I had forgotten how squeamish foreigners are about the way we dance. Sandwiches, trains, and the grind- so gloriously vulgar, so American! I stood at the counter waiting to get a drink and absorbing the comfortable familiarity of the Edge environment with its campy music (they were playing Mika!). I was starting to get used to the weekly routine at this underground bar, where anything goes and nobody cares enough to judge you. It was like a catharsis, a much-needed release, this weekly meeting of US army members, mercenaries, Ethiopian prostitutes, guys named Fred, and of course us teachers, all for a crazy night of dancing. 

It was a lethargic beginning this night, where we all sat around pooped out from a long week of yelling at kids and trying to stuff knowledge into their little brains, but then a round of tequila was bought by a benevolent stranger-friend named Marsha, and suddenly the techno beat was surging through our blood and oozing through our extremities making them twitch and nod into Movement. Things got crazy on the dance floor pretty soon after, and hm, we seemed to have more to catharsisize than usual tonight because things got pretty heated between me and one of the teachers. 

Eventually, I danced and pranced my way outside to take a break. Naz, a sweet guy still only 19, led a couple of us to a shed next to the empty backyard pool, opened it, and out came the adorable black puppy that I'd seen last week! I played with Rico and talked with him like I do with my kindergarteners, my voice nuanced with happy tones, happy tones, and more happy tones. How alike they were, this puppy and my 5-year-olds! The way this puppy so eagerly jumped and leapt all over me for pets and coddles and rubs was exactly how my 5-year-olds attacked me daily for hugs and high-fives. Hmph! They were like puppies the lot of them. Interestingly, the Canadian in dreadlocks tells me I am more like them than I realize. “You know, as much as you like to imitate them,” she said the other day, “you're like one of them yourself.” Hm, my imitations may be superceding me. Acting, like fugues, was a dangerous art form. 

I went back inside to dance some more, but after only a couple songs (with a Latin beat- nice one, DJ!), came back out to play with Rico some more, but Naz had locked him back inside the shed. Ah well. Instead of going back inside right away, I hung around out in the backyard, gazing at the stars and enjoying the solitude of the night, and peering into the window, yellow-orange and black with light and shadows of people, and throbbing with the heavy bass that accompanied the oldy melodies. I was happy now, I thought to myself. Now at the Edge, now in Kurdistan. I found myself thinking suddenly about instant gratification and its opposite- rewards gained after years of hard work. How much of my happiness these days was reached through instant gratification? Was I working toward anything that would reap rewards years later? Maybe, and I didn't know it. One never knows what will go down as useful in the long-run. It could be anything, or everything, but never nothing, I didn't think. 

Later, back inside, I wandered over to the newly painted dart wall and threw some really bad ones- the kinds where the dart just bounces off the dartboard and falls to the floor, its head breaking off from the needle. Naz and some of the other guys in the vicinity took pity and gave me some helpful pointers like “don't move your body, just your arm” and “just throw really hard”, and soon the darts were bouncing and splitting less often, and I even managed to hit the bulls-eye once. Even so, I kept warning people to stay far away while I aimed. “I don't want to kill you, I don't want to pierce your skull with this dart!” I explained earnestly to a thickheaded, thick-bodied dude who wouldn't get out of my way. Didn't he understand? “Please move, I don't want to kill you!” I repeated. “Kill me,” he replied, his smile unreadable. Huh? “Kill me,” he insisted again. Confused, I wondered suddenly and randomly if he was one of those murderous Blackwater soldiers. He certainly was big enough. Instead of pursuing the matter, though, I just returned my focus to the dartboard and aimed again. This time, the bulky guy moved, perhaps fearing that I was too drunk to know he was standing in the way. I shot, and no one's skull was pierced (and very possibly, neither was the dartboard). 

It was around this time, while I was standing around the dart wall, that Val came over and jovially bit me on the shoulder. I cried out in real pain. This was no cute little joke bite! “What the hell Val?” I demanded while crouched down on the floor holding onto my damaged shoulder. “Sorry!” she apologized remorsefully, “I just watched 'Interview With a Vampire' and now, I'm going around biting people.”

Go figure. We left soon after the biting, toed our way over the cancerous asphalt once again, past the armed guards, past the 7-11 sign, past the generator, and out the iron gate. The taxis had yet to arrive, so I hopped up on a stray piece of ledge next to Matt Damon and looked up at the stars again, searching for my twinkly friend Orion, but I could not locate his studded waist accessory, nor his extremities. Perhaps they had been left back at the Edge, still pulsing and twitching and nodding to the music. 

Buttermilk Pancake Night

It's 2:30 in the morning, and my apartment still smells like buttermilk pancakes, mmm. SJ and I held a breakfast dinner at my place tonight, and the pancakes (one batch made from a buttermilk cornbread recipe and the other from an actual buttermilk pancake recipe) were divine. I've got my favorite poprock CD playing on my flat-screen tv- “Drops of Jupiter”, Augustana's “Boston”, Something Corporate's “Konstantine”, and the like. One more day, and it's the weekend again, I can do it! 

I talked with Sarah online tonight and learned that she'd met up with a couple of our old teachers over winter break. She said they looked exactly the same, though it's been what...6 and 11 years. Wow...They taught me, and now I'm doing what they're doing! As a first-year teacher here in Kurdistan, I often think about my own teachers and especially Mr. and Mrs. Chon, who taught me, Sarah, and James all throughout elementary, middle and high school every Saturday. I often thank my lucky stars that I don't have to teach the kids like the ones I went to middle school with, or the disrespectful Korean kids I went to hakwon with. Some were good, but some were so bad, it's no wonder he got a heart attack that one year. I feel their influence in my classroom even so far away and so long ago. Just as they had us memorize all the squares from 11x11 up to 21x21, I challenged my 2nd graders to do the same. Some of them actually succeeded, and these are the ones who I can see are far more brilliant than I was when I was their age, and who will be far more brilliant than me by the time they are my age. Then there are the ones who, no matter how many times I drill them, can't seem to retain anything. Today, I spent like 20 minutes after school, helping one of my 2nd graders memorize 9x9, 9x8, and 9x7. 

“9 times 8 is 72. 9 times 8 is 72. 9 times 8 is 72,” we chanted together.

“What's 9 times 8?” I then asked.

Nothing. Nothing! We just said it!

“We just said it, Raen!” I said in semi-frustrated, semi-encouraging tones, if that is even possible.

Sigh...hopefully, she will practice during the car ride home and in the bathroom like I told her to. Just like Mr. Chon told us to at hakwon. “The best place to study is in the bathroom,” he used to tell us kids. Of course, we would giggle at the idea, just as my 2nd graders giggle when I say it to them. One day, Shano came up to me and said “Miss? At home, I can't go to the bathroom because I don't want to practice my times tables.” Hehe. Silly kids. I love how they their jokes always fall flat because their English is still stilted. 

She Wears Her Heart On Her Sleeve

What I love about Shene: She cries shamelessly when she's sad, and smiles brilliantly a minute later when the problem's been solved. One day she ran joyfully to the bathroom and came out a minute later crying with trembling lips and huge watery eyes, her stockings down to her ankles and dress in a tangle at her neck. I looked to see what was making her whine so piteously, and discovered the reason for her distress: underneath her clothes she was wearing a zip-up unitard that she just couldn't figure out how to take off in order to go pee. Oh, the plights of a 5-year-old! I wanted to laugh despite her distress, poor thing. I led her to the bathroom with soothing words and helped her take the spandex contraption off, holding in my laughter as she dashed into the stall completely and shamelessly naked. A minute later, she came back out of the bathroom all smiles and ran to her seat, as if nothing terrible had happened just a minute ago, as if no tears had been shed over the matter. This is what I love about Shene: she makes no attempt to stopper her tears when she is feeling sad or distressed, and likewise, when she is happy, she will smile so brilliantly and yell so shrilly and with such gusto during our oral exercises that I have to try hard not to laugh out loud after my initial shock. Shene, she wears her heart on her sleeve, just like the song says, her face a direct conduit to her heart. 

Wicked Quote

[Elphie:] “Do you even believe in other worlds?”

“I find it a great effort to believe in this one,” said Sarima, “yet it seems to be here...”

Citadel Survey #2: Chasing the Sunset Through the Magical Dump

January 10, 2009

Sarah-Jessica (the newest teacher from northern CA who looks like a Sarah and a Jessica but is not named either) and I ventured up to the Citadel today some time before sunset. This was my second visit to the more than 8000-year-old fortress city, and SJ's first, so I was so excited to accompany her in her first steps into the most magical little dump of a place in Erbil. It took us ages just to take those first steps because as it turns out, we are both photo freaks and enjoy taking pictures of every leaf, every brick and angle. I got a picture of the “50 cent” graffiti on the ancient walls leading to the arched entrance, as well as a shot of SJ getting solicited by a child selling gum for a quarter a pack- and I found out later, she got one of me in the same sticky situation. As soon as she gave money to the child, another one, and then another one came running toward her with their own boxes of gum, and I felt kinda bad- but mostly amused- for being the one to have advised her to just buy one in the first place. 

After getting rid of the ragged children, we turned to step into the actual Citadel, but then we saw the giant statue of the Kurdish literary figure whose name escapes me, and decided on the spot that it looked quite climbable. But there could be no way with the guards standing right there, right? I put down my purse and approached the statue because what was the worst that could happen? Before I could reach the statue and attempt to climb it, though, the figure of a 3rd guard popped into view at the head of the ginormous statue from behind. Hm...well I guess it was okay to climb it then if the guards themselves were all over it like monkeys! I climbed the base, and expected to have to struggle up to the lap of the statue, but then the guard on the statue actually offered his hand to help me up! I grabbed it gratefully and he practically pulled my entire weight up. In seconds, I was sitting against the face, with my legs resting on the pages of the giant open book in the statue's lap. The guard took off his red beret and earmuffs, stuck them on my head and ears, and posed with me for SJ and the two guards below who had their camera phones out. Hehe. This is what I love about Kurdistan- it is not yet a major tourist city, and so the rules at the few attractions here are very lax, and the guards are easygoing, friendly and always up for a bit of fun. A guard sits inside a little ticket box at the gate below, but there is no entrance fee nor ticket needed to go in. 

After SJ had her turn on the statue, we finally stepped foot within the actual city walls and began exploring with our cameras out, ready for action. Unlike the last time, there were no stray cats to greet us at the entrance, and I wondered where they had all gone to. No big loss since they kinda freaked me out- so silent and watchful, the lot of them. We wandered toward the back of the Citadel, and on the way, stepped into one of the old vacated homes. Wow, the rooms were tiny dumps, crumbling walls made of gray stone bricks, dirt floors. Late afternoon light poured in through a large gap in the low roof made of splintering wood, providing some light for us to see that old, dirt-clogged water bottles and an empty bag of chips lay among the sticks and other rubble in the dirt. I snapped a photo of SJ silhouetted against the open door I had just walked through, painted a bright blue with splotches of red or pink showing through from previous paint jobs. She was looking upwards toward the roof in a pose of discovery, and I could just imagine her thinking words of amazement as she witnessed what I had witnessed just seconds before her. 

We wandered out of the room and back out another door, and continued on toward the back of the fortress city that used to make up the entirety of Erbil. While snapping photos of the old mosque in the middle of the city, SJ pointed out the full moon that rose only so high near the mosque's turret. We turned  off the main street and ran up the rubble-lined path, intent on capturing the moon from a good angle. Even with the late afternoon sun still lighting up the sky in hues of the faintest blue and lavender, the full moon appeared luminous and white between the crumbling shanties and wiring strung between the telephone poles. Telephone poles in an 8000-year-old city? Weird...but before I could snap a picture of this sight, a guard who'd spotted SJ snapping away with her SLR called us away from the area, saying it was off limits (I presume- he was speaking Kurdish of course). She left to distract the guard, giving me a few seconds to snap away at the moon between the shanties. Then I followed suit, greeting the guard in Kurdish with a friendly smile so that he wouldn't be mad at us. He smiled back and asked us our names, so we knew it was gonna be okay the next time we came. 

We continued on toward the back entrance- another crumbling archway made of stone which appeared from a distance to open up into yet another stunning view of the more modern city that surrounded the Citadel from below. Before we could reach this archway, we got asked to have our pictures taken by two men visiting from Sulaimaniyah. Then just before the archway, I got distracted by a curious little kitten peeking out of a 2nd-story window frame, and paused to take a picture of it while SJ continued on through the archway. Before I could snap a proper photo of the kitten though, I heard SJ's voice calling my name “Oh my god, you've got to see this!” Snap snap snap, went the shutter of her SLR. “You've got to get a picture of this!” Snap snap snap. I could see her standing framed between the archway, facing left with her camera at her eye working frantically. “Is it gonna go away soon?” I asked, wondering what in the world it could be. I wandered through the archway and turned left to see what she was going on about, and a brilliant, blisteringly blood-red sun stared back at me. A sliver of the blood-red coin was already hidden behind the horizon of buildings. I turned and looked the opposite way and saw the full moon on this other side, a luminous, white coin pressed aloft against a pale blue and lavender sky. Deja vu, deja vu, I thought as I suddenly remembered a similar experience in Sulaimaniyah, minus the tombstones and junkyard in the north and the south. 

The two visitors from Sulaimaniyah asked us for another photo, but we waved them away as we frantically tried to capture the stunning view on camera (impossible! but we always try) before the sun sank away completely behind the buildings. Then we dashed away, leaving the two men waiting for us in the dust as we tried to get to the other side as fast as possible to catch the sunset from there. As we sprinted through the dirt, I told her about the Sulaimaniyah sunset-moonrise, and we wondered aloud between huffs and puffs whether we would make it because the sun had taken only seconds to sink halfway down. At last, we reached the front entrance and hopped down the steps, but alas, it was too late! Twilight had set in, that dusky hour just after sunset when the sun's light still brightens the skies from just below the horizon. Only a thin, hazy smearing of pale yellow, blue and pink remained along the horizon in front of us, and of course, the moon behind us, the ancient tan-colored citadel walls off to the side, and the rows and rows of flat silver rooftops 30 meters below. We weren't terribly disappointed because there would be plenty of chances to chase the sunset in the next 6 months, and so we just lingered there with the guards. Pairs of tourists and locals lingered around us: a few straggled along the hill leading to the Citadel entrance; at the top, a couple (most likely Kurdish) tourists stood posing for pictures under the moon next to a bare-branched tree; two locals in their teens or twenties sat together with their legs dangling over the ledge and facing the silver rooftops, their backs to the citadel and curved at similar angles downward toward the bazaar below; a bicycle lay on the ground behind them. Eventually, we made our way down the shallow, uneven steps, past the 50 cent graffiti, and out of the Citadel grounds. 

A wandering through the bazaar and two deliciously salty shwarmas later, we were back at school in Matt Damon's room, watching a horrible movie called “Blindness” and yelling at Julianne Moore for being such a ninny. What a terrible terrible movie. But terrible movies make for hilarious comments from the viewers, so it was not a complete waste of time after all. Weekends are just too damn short dammit! I wish I had a time-turner. 

The Revival of Beer Pong

January 10, 2009

I played beer pong last night for the first time since summer 2006, when I lived in a sticky-floored frat house before moving into the city (in Philly). And the Lebo and I totally killed Team Great Britain with my killer underhand toss. Only, because the host of the birthday party has celiac disease, we used jungle juice instead of glutenous beer. Only, we couldn't find any kool-aid or hi-c mix, so we ended up drinking the most foul, the most tangy mix I've ever tasted. Every time I took a sip of that goddamn juice, my face reacted like Kevin in Home Alone whenever he put on that aftershave. We filled marbled balloons with random objects and popped them like a sick version of a pinata. The Falaballoon (balloon containing a falafel) won for coolest flight pattern- very erratic and tumbling quickly down like a crazed, doomed bird. In my happy state, I kept on going on about how happy it made me to see the Lebo and his HOD together, and how much I hoped for them to stay together forever. Nothing makes me happier than to see a couple who seem made for each other. Lucky in love they are, and they are few and far between, though I wouldn't consider the others as errant, necessarily...Anyway, away from amorphous, inchoate sayings. I fumbled a joke and ended up smashing a cupcake into a colleague's face. Oops. And I fell on my left ass. I know this because I woke up this morning with a sore left ass. Thank god for bruises- because sometimes, memory is just not good enough. 

2009 Begins at the Edge

January 9, 2009

Aw Yeah, starting off the first weekend of the year with a bang!- At the Edge, of course. Before the Edge, we finally decided to venture to the go-cart racetrack, and BOY have I missed driving! I kept thinking, wow I haven't driven in five months! Five whole months without a steering wheel in hand, cruising down the open (or congested) road! And then I ended up breaking my driving fast with a go-cart in Erbil, speeding around the curves until my hands were numb with cold (which took all of 5 minutes), and then some. Afterward, we had drinks and real pizza and chicken fingers and fries at the adjacent lounge before all eight of us piled into a single taxi, and heaved and hummed our way to the old bar-club on the American compound in Ainkawa full of mercenaries. How we fit 8 into a little cab (9 including the driver!) is beyond me. We had 6 in the back, and 2 in the front, and for bonus points, no one had to sit on the driver's lap and steer for him. We must have put on a shrinking spell on us, or a gorging spell on the car. What is the most number of people you have ever gotten into a taxi with?

Anyhoo, despite my continual insistence that the Edge is just “not my thing”, I had the time of my life once again. Just what is the magic of that place? Oh yes, I've already established, it is my fun colleagues that make the Edge such a fantastically unforgettable experience each time I go. The dancing during the Edge Experience #6 was awesomer than usual because they started off with some good hip-hop remixes before the usual Eighties, Pretenders, Arctic Monkeys, and Abba. And then in the middle of it all, the most adorable black puppy appeared at the window leading to the backyard pool (which is now empty as it is too cold to swim). Awwww...my heart was melting like the Wicked Witch of the West...who apparently, in actuality, was not so wicked. Wickedness is relative, I suppose. Or some wicknessness is really just a case of misunderstanding. 

Oh yes, I've begun reading “Wicked” by Gregory Maguire, and I am engrossed in the pages of the book, which fleshes out the previously one-dimensional characters of the witches of Oz. It is no children's book, I've discovered. By no means. Maguire is an excellent, excellent writer, and his imagination is...wicked, really the only wicked part of that book. According to Maguire's reinterpretation of the old Oz story, the Wicked Witch of the West was a major misnomer for a witch who was just seriously misunderstood. Glinda the Good Witch is not all that good, though she's not utterly evil either, and Dorothy isn't the sweet little innocent that her pigtails and pinafore set her up to be. This is why I love books that flesh out the old, venerable myths and fairy tales which tend to be sorrily lacking in character depth and development. (Take the Arabian Nights, for instance. Someone should flesh out those pancake characters! And Dave Barry has already done it with Peter Pan- his series which I would also recommend, along with Maguire's book.)

It's been a busy first week back! I wish I had had a few days off after coming back in order to recuperate and organize my thoughts and get back into the teaching mindset- and most importantly, to blog about my trip around the Mideast. Alas, we had to hit the ground running, and jump right back into teaching the day after I got back. At first it was really hard, but I'm finally getting settled back into the teaching routine and remembering that I actually like my students and enjoy teaching them. What really surprised me was when one day, we were just finishing up a page of the phonics book and moving on to the next page, and little 4-year-old Mina with the coquettish head of curly blonde locks said “Miss Angie, this page?” To myself I was thinking, “Yes Mina, must you ask me for affirmation every single time we go on to a new page? Jesus H...” Aloud, I said “Yes, Mina, good girl!” with bright eyes, a wide smile, and as much genuineness as I could possibly muster. 

Then my assistant who was standing off to the side said suddenly with real enthusiasm in her voice: “Miss Angie, Mina speak English!” Wow, yeah, it was true! Better than my Kurdish assistant, actually! All around me, suddenly I realized that day that all my kids were actually speaking full sentences in English, and it really was a big deal. And then I began to notice the other dramatic changes since their arrival all over again and was amazed all over again. I can't tell you how much I now believe in the importance of sending your kids to kindergarten to be surrounded by peers and to learn. It really opens up their eyes, their personalities, and their minds of course. During that crucial kindergarten year, they go from crying whining selfish babies to actual people who know that other people exist besides their own selves, and the transformation is really amazing to watch unfold before your eyes. If asked to do it again, I would most definitely say no because that stage between babyhood and personhood is much too painful and stressful to withstand year after year. But if, at this point, I were asked to trade my KG class for an older group, I would most definitely say no again. They have become my kids now, and I wouldn't trade them for the world. Nor my 2nd graders for that matter. 

And yet, it is still ever so hard to get up each morning to teach these little rugrats. The snooze button on my phone is fading with wear because I push it an innumerable number of times every morning, sometimes getting up a mere 15 minutes before I have to be at work. The Lizst song I have as my wake-up call will haunt me for the next 20 years, I swear. 

Life & Fashion

It's really killing me that the internet is so slow. Someone's downloading movies, and I'm gonna find out who. In the meantime, here's a short update to let you know I'm still alive, back from my winter trip around the Mideast, and trying to write about my trip in between teaching, exploring Kurdistan, reading great books, working out, and partying with my colleagues. Happy 2009 y'all! Make it happen! You only live once, and time is linear and directed; you can never do that day over again. One more thing: I'm wearing baby-blue teddy bear barrettes on my jeans. Along with the importance of family and friends, and the linearity and non-symmetricality of time, this is another thing I discovered during my solo travels around the Mideast: you can spice up your regular weekend jeans-and-shirt outfit by hooking things to the belt loops of your jeans or clipping things to the pockets.