the past is a haunting

Post traumatic stress: not just for war, she thought. She felt silly and dramatic for thinking that. But what else to call this incessant feeling? The ceased existence of what was once vibrant; the vivid aching realness of something disappeared. The feeling of emptiness- how did all those moments fill such a space in the heart and then just suddenly disappear?- and the fear it will never be filled again, a saggy receptacle stretched larger still with the weight of this sadness. The splintering of happiness into a million, haunting, ever-present but gone moments. The way a lyric in a song could cause her to recall an unwelcome feeling and send her reeling into a fit of despair in the middle of driving to buy groceries. Standing in her kitchen washing dishes, a phantom sensation of a caress on the shoulder would cause her to break and slump into herself, sobbing. Scraps of paper with hand scribbled notes, casually tacked to the wall now were precious artifacts of a bygone time, and would cause her to clutch herself for fear of fading away, crying on the couch until day receded into night, and she was still alone. Little ghosts scattered everywhere, peppered throughout the day. Every moment riddled with landmines.

Being among people had become an alien experience. She thought surrounding herself would offer a much needed distraction, a way to escape from the weight of her thoughts. But she felt the nagging tug of that darkness even more in the presence of others. The language of happiness, of excitement, made her feel foreign, lonelier than ever. Misery had become her skin, her parasite, the tug and comfort of a strait jacket.

mo(u)rning

she opened her eyes. 7:23 am. the sun was already beaming onto her face from the window across the bed from her, shining hot and bright from off the roof of the house across the driveway. the birds were perched as they were every morning for the last 47 days, heads cocked cheerily to the side, screaming their tiny lungs into the summer air. at least they were happy it was summer. at least there was constancy there. so much life and cheer in small animals, she thought. she imagined the thoughts of a little bird brain, wished for the daily happiness that caused small birds to sing.

her face was heavy and puffy, her eyes refusing to open despite feeling wide awake. perhaps it was her allergies, the endless crying that caused her face to swell like it needed an epi pen, or the incurable wakefulness. it had been 57 days since she had slept a full night. she'd toss and turn in bed, drifting between bouts of fitful sobbing and panicky night sweats. the crying helped to exhaust her enough to drift into a pretend slumber before the panic of her reality set in again and the muscles in her face, her jaw, her hands, her forehead would tense, she'd feel the weight of her existence crushing down on her like a steel clamp, and she'd be eyes open again, staring into the darkness of the night, thinking about a life spent like this and feeling afraid that she'd never enjoy a moment of calm and not-fear again. it felt like a life sentence, trapped in the cell of her body, a vessel for a punishment meted out for a crime she didn't realize she'd committed.

she would lay there in bed picking through the details of her life, hopelessly trying to find the reasons she deserved to be this unhappy. a Sysiphean task, she feared she'd find herself rolling that crushing weight around in her mind every moment for the rest of her life.

i don't have the words to say how i feel right now

one of the things i'm most grateful for, and will cherish the rest of my life, is the last year - and how, for the first time in my life, i lived only an hour away from my Grandma and not a whole country apart. i went to visit her every weekend, and was always greeted with a big smile and a big hug and lots of food (always so much food!). i practiced my Chinese and was able, for the first time in 

my life, to have a real conversation with my Grandma, to understand stories she would tell me about my dad and my uncles when they were growing up, to hear her talk about the time they moved to SF together, to hear her talk about my Grandpa, to hear her talk about poetry and history and how she used to do Tai Chi in the park. to be able to tell her in my limited Mandarin that i love her, and that i think about her every day. and when it came time for me to move away, to tell her that i would miss her, but that i would call her when i got to Syracuse. and when i got to Syracuse, to call her on the phone every week and tell her i missed her and was looking forward to seeing her again soon. i still feel my Mandarin was never quite advanced enough to tell her how much i love her, or to understand all the wisdom she imparted to me. and one year will never be enough, but i'm so glad i had that time and spent it getting to know her. 我愛你奶奶.

when the truth becomes a lie

Mike Daisey, a story-teller/monologist who was recently featured on This American Life criticizing Apple and "exposing" their seemingly atrocious labor practices, has now been publicly exposed (also on This American Life) as a "liar." it turns out that Daisey fabricated a majority of the vivid and extremely personal stories he shares in his one-act, The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. (and Ira Glass is ostensibly pissed!!)


while this perhaps causes some Mac enthusiasts to rejoice, i am personally unswayed. and while i believe in the importance of journalistic integrity, i also hate to see a well-meaning story-teller publicly (albeit gently and rightfully) skewered at the hands of Ira Glass. the thing is, while it is now clear that some of what Daisey said was not 100% true or accurate, in the sense that it did not happen in the perfect story, movie-like way he describes in his monologue, there were essences and bases of truth in what he said. and while i was initially somewhat upset with Mike Daisey for seemingly misleading lots of people, i think the work he did was extremely important, if only because he personified and made tangible/personal the human injustice problems underlying the manufacture of our first-world luxuries. he exposed and made visible the human factor that is sacrificed at the altar of Commodity. granted, the details of Daisey's stories were tweaked and altered to achieve maximum impact, but sometimes the greater "truth" is best achieved thru some tactful lying. this brings to mind the chapter of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried in which he describes the difference between "truth" and "story-truth" and how sometimes you have to build compelling stories around a truth to give the truth even more truth. in both cases, the "truth" being served justifies some lying, wouldn't you agree?


furthermore, the "truth" in this situation is arguably subjective and particularly difficult to determine. as someone who works in a chinese manufacturing company, very similar to ones that work for Apple and FoxConn, i have seen the way these internal audits are run. i've also seen how things in the company are done, from concealing misdeeds, to ensuring "outsiders" don't see the true operations of the company. i would not be at all surprised if it turned out Daisey's translator was paid off by someone from FoxConn to make adjustments to her story. she might even feel some fear in being complicit in Daisey's takedown of FoxConn and Apple. furthermore, i'm struck by how strange and very messed up it is to hear multiple American journalists working somewhat hard to justify the working conditions in China, basically to the effect of "oh, it's China, and they do stuff like that there. we can't compare working conditions there to America, that just wouldn't be 'fair.'" statements like these, by Americans working really hard to justify a shitty system of labor and economics that makes profit and products on the backs of unprotected and un-unionized foreign workers, make me extremely angry all over again, and make me realize just how important Mike Daisey's work was, and make me sad that now it may be forever discredited for being a "lie." it's clear, from hearing so many Americans rushing to defend Apple in the wake of the original story and even more fervently after its retraction, that the problem with America and capitalism and all of its conveniences, is that products such as the iphone are an entity more real than the workers who make them. this is a serious problem. Daisey's stories were important, because they forced us to care about something we previously took for granted. we'd never before thought to ask ourselves who the person behind our iphones/ipads/ipods was, never thought to question the existence and practices of the supply chain that supplies an endless number of goods to enable our very convenient, modern lives, and never thought to question our own place in that economic ecosystem and the moral implications of such a passive stance. the really sad thing is that now that Daisey has come forward for fabricating his story, 


when i listen to the retraction episode, i'm struck by how badly Mike Daisey wanted his American audience to feel something, to feel empathy for the Chinese factory workers, to feel some sense of consumer conscience and responsibility and feel incited to change. even if he achieved this in a deceitful way, is it so bad he tried to get us all to feel something, and do something about it?


even if the details of Daisey's story are not completely true, the truth underlying his story is, and that has yet to change; the working conditions at Chinese factories such as FoxConn are not fair, and the subpar working conditions continue to be condoned and widely practiced because companies like Apple have not yet taken adequate action to prevent and stop them, and because American customers have yet to express their demands for change.


what follows is an excerpt from the end of the retraction episode i find particularly pertinent: 

Ira Glass: But to get to the normative question that’s kind of underlying all the reporting and all the discussion of this, the thing that we all want to know when we hear this is like, “Wait, should I feel bad about this?” As somebody who owns these products, should I feel bad? […]

Charles Duhigg: Let me pose the argument that people have posed to me about why you should feel bad, and you can make of it what you will.
 And that argument is there were times in this nation when we had harsh working conditions as part of our economic development. We decided as a nation that that was unacceptable. We passed laws in order to prevent those harsh working conditions from ever being inflicted on American workers again.

And what has happened today is that rather than exporting that standard of life, which is within our capacity to do, we have exported harsh working conditions to another nation.
So should you feel bad that someone is working 12 to 24 hours a day in order to produce the iPhone that you’re carrying in your pocket? […] Should you feel bad about that? I don’t know, that’s for you to judge, but I think the the way to pose that question is… do you feel comfortable knowing that iPhones and iPads and other products could be manufactured in less harsh conditions, but that these harsh conditions perpetuate because of an economy that you are […] supporting with your dollars. […] You’re not only the direct beneficiary [of those harsh conditions]; you are actually one of the reasons why it exists. If you made different choices, if you demanded different conditions, if you demanded that other people enjoy the same work protections that you yourself enjoy, then those conditions would be different overseas.

Ira Glass and Charles Duhigg of the NY Times, discussing working conditions in Apple factories in China [from This American Life’s recent episode, in which they discover Mike Daisey fabricated parts of his story on working conditions in FoxConn factories in Shenzen, China].

cubicle chronicles

i have started drawing at my desk as a way of coping with the feelings of horrible boredom and waste of my life's potential that comes with my job. it is also an excellent way of managing my anger and frustration and staving off my daily existential crises.

i like to "free draw," that is, i like to make random lines on a page and turn those into drawings. i like to think of it as "liberating" the drawings on the page. all this to say, i definitely don't consider myself a serious artist, and i don't know what i'm doing.

but the other day, i was drawing, and the drawing turned out to look a little/ a lot like me.

i gave her a mean stare (because this is how my face probably looks most of the time at work), combat boots and nunchucks, so she'd be tough and not stand crap from anybody (because most of the time at work i feel silenced and powerless). 

and then i decided to keep going with it, and i started making these comics. i put her in situations that bother me at work, like when people at the cubicle next to mine start clipping their nails at their desk, or when my supervisor who smokes and drinks lots of coffee decides to breathe into my face. soon i'll have her confronting the people at work who don't recycle, who talk really loud on their phones, who don't clean up the microwave. it's been surprisingly therapeutic. these are the drawings i've done so far (click to enlarge):

The Nail-Clipper

Coffee-Cigarette Breath

at fingertips

for those of you who're kind enough to have bookmarked my blog, you'll notice a small design change: the new "favicon" for the blog, taken from this picture below:

this photo was snapped by ben on our recent trip to LA. we witnessed this amazing moment in nature. and what was so amazing about it was how unnatural it seemed: there were hundreds of these pigeons, on the beach at sunset, flying in these sweeping arcs, over and over above our heads. it was so conspicuous that we stopped, many people stopped, to look up and wonder at their movements. they flew in this gigantic, menacing swarm, gradually descending lower to the ground, so low that at one point, standing on the boardwalk, i could reach my hand up and feel the beating of hundreds of wings, so close to my fingertips.

cluster flock from stephan!e lee on Vimeo.

everyone asking why? why are they doing this? where did all these pigeons come from? there was a man on the shore, wearing a fishing vest and a hat, who we noticed was moving his hand in a certain way. "he's throwing seeds," was ben's observation. could it be possible? were these pigeons performing for food? i noticed later, after the pigeons eventually landed, that the man had a large net, like one used for fishing. could it be possible that he, too, was performing for food (i noticed him lift it menacingly from time to time)?

how strange, the sudden behaviors and togetherness of swarms (both bird and human swarms, in this case). how strange, the choreography in nature and the ways in which forces of nature interact, and the eery beauty that results from nature being manipulated against its will.

it reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite films, All The Real Girls. the movie as a whole has some quietly insightful writing, including the following scene, about nature (skip to about 2:12 in the clip if you want to get to the point):

"have you ever seen a mistake in nature? have you ever seen an animal make a mistake?" there's a beautiful truth to that statement. humans are known as the only animal with "will power" and "intelligence" and somehow we conceptualize humanity as above animals, above nature, and thus able to control and manipulate it. but nature is perfect and seamless and remarkable, and humans, despite our self-importance, must pause in awe and wonder of that perfect splendor.

"tantalized" by mythology!

i was reading East of Eden today during my lunch break when i caught a reference to Tantalus, from Greek mythology. East of Eden is a book i've been (re?*)reading because i thoroughly enjoyed it in high school, and living in the same setting where the story takes place imparts a magic realism to the story that makes it read even more like history than fiction. furthermore, i am convinced Steinbeck and i would have been besties if we just got the timing right. **although now that i'm actually nearing the end of the book, i'm not even positive i finished it the first(?) time i read it.

anyway, lucky for me, i had quick access to a computer and Wikipedia, and was able to read up about Tantalus. what a cute story!

In mythology, Tantalus became one of the inhabitants of Tartarus, the deepest portion of the Underworld, reserved for the punishment of evildoers...

Tantalus was initially known for having been welcomed to Zeus' table in Olympus. There he is said to have misbehaved and stolen ambrosia and nectar to bring it back to his people, and revealed the secrets of the gods.

Most famously, Tantalus offered up his son, Pelops, as sacrifice. He cut Pelops up, boiled him, and served him up in a banquet for the gods. The gods became aware of the gruesome nature of the menu, so they didn't touch the offering [...] The Greeks of classical times claimed to be horrified by Tantalus's doings; cannibalism, human sacrifice and infanticide were atrocities and taboo.

Tantalus's punishment for his act, now a proverbial term for temptation without satisfaction (the source of the English word tantalise), was to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches raised his intended meal from his grasp. Whenever he bent down to get a drink, the water receded before he could get any. This fate has cursed him with eternal deprivation of nourishment. [source: Wikipedia]

From Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell":

I dare say you have heard of Tantalus? The wicked king who baked his little son in a pie and ate him? He has been condemned to stand up to his chin in a pool of water he cannot drink, beneath a vine laden with grapes he cannot eat. This wine is made from those grapes. And, since the vine was planted there for the sole purpose of tormenting Tantalus, you may be sure the grapes have an excellent flavour and aroma-and so does the wine. ^[source]

this was a fantastic learning moment for me: i never knew the word "tantalize" came from Greek mythology, and furthermore, i had no idea we've been misusing/altering the word from its original intended meaning. i've always heard "tantalizing" used to mean "supremely appealing" or "tempting," neither of which pay due homage to Tantalus's situation of being perpetually and torturously out of reach of what he wants.

i thought about how a story like this would have been great to share with students if i were still teaching; it would be a powerful mnemonic device to help them remember the meaning of the word "tantalize." the imagery is great, albeit a little violent, but totally captivating and engrossing for even South Central kids. it also got me thinking about the curious nature of stories and mythology.

i never took a mythology class in high school - i was too busy taking AP Psych and Stats in preparation for what i thought would be a career in psychology - but a lot of my high school friends did. i remember seeing this book a lot in the cafeteria:

in retrospect, i wish i had taken time to study mythology in greater depth. my Greek/Roman history is real shaky, but i've always been fascinated by the stories in their mythology, and how they seem to bleed and blur the lines of historical fact and fiction. i appreciate how imbued Greek history is with myth and vice versa. the same can be said of Biblical history as well, i suppose. it's fascinating to me how blurry the lines between "myth" and "history" are.

this was especially tangible on ben's and my travels through Turkey a few summers ago. for example, we visited the modern day Çanakkale, the purported site of ancient Troy. there were historical sites and landmarks all over that place, juxtaposed with trappings of modern life. case in point: ben is enjoying some Turkish ice cream beside the wooden horse from the movie Troy (yes, that really awful one with Brad Pitt).

in another part of Turkey (one which we did not personally visit), the existence of a "weeping" rock formation gives credo to the ancient myth about Niobe, whose hubris offended the gods and caused them to punish her by murdering all 14 of her sons and daughters and turning her to stone. the "Weeping Rock" in Turkey, amazingly, weeps rainwater through its porous surface, and resembles the face of a woman.


it at once fascinates me to the point of glee and confuses me to the point of irritability, the way history and myth blend together, making it unclear to me what magic is possible and believable because it happened, and what magic is imagined lore made truth thru centuries of faith. because if i am to believe the Trojan War really happened, that means Zeus and Achilles and etc. were real too, right? and if that's so, what's to say all the other wonders of the ancient world weren't also, at some point, real?

it's blowing my mind a little bit.

#McLobster

first, some context: twitter is currently trending #McLobster.

for me, "McLobster" inspires a flood of love. and shortly after, the singe of regret.

McLobster image from here.

the image of a moist, creamy, curious McLobster, my mother ordering one at a McD's in Canada circa 1995 – curious about its flavor, always willing to try new things, unafraid of strangeness and conventional wisdom telling her otherwise, her love of finer things (lobster) combining with her thriftiness (for $4.99 Canadian) – she comes back with my father to the motel room where my brother and i lie exhausted on opposite beds, on top of the shiny slick duvets, our feet dangling over the edges, shoes still tied

conjures the thought of my mother, the agency of ordering this sandwich from Atlantic Canadians, her biting into it, in a purple motel room with dark wood panelling, clutching the McLobster in her tiny hands, her subsequent surprise and relish, how my brother and i, interest piqued, rose from our beds, crawled on hands and knees to kneel next to her on the edge of the bed, to take timid nibbles at the edge of her sandwich, as she held it out to us with her tiny hands

how her approval could inspire our curiosity and interest and lead us to devour not just one but multiple sandwiches stuffed with artificial shellfish

how our mother's curiosity and fearlessness i inherited as far as it came to food but regrettably little else

how this action provided a window into understanding my mother, allowed me to imagine her young and new and unsure but willing, making a life for herself with my father, wishing to raise children who would have opportunities she didn't have, slowly carving out a path and a life through small, brave decisions – how will this taste? will it be bitter? is the meat real? can we trust it? – and these little decisions form little steps into futures we hope will be better than yesterday – where do i go from here? what do i do? who do i want to be?

- - -

inspired by Lorrie Moore's "How To Talk To Your Mother (Notes)" from Self-Help (1985).

back to the future

have i mentioned, i love time travel!

i found this wonderful photography project by a woman in Brazil by the name of Irina Werning, who has been collecting old photos from her friends in Buenos Ares and having them "go back in time" to re-enact moments from their past.

at first i thought she had just found old photos and then procured models who could be dressed up and posed in a way resembling the photographs, but about halfway thru the gallery it occurred to me that these past and future people are actually the same people. once you realize the photos are actually juxtaposing real past with real present, with decades in between, you're humbled by the human ability to transcend change. or to put it another way, humans wear change very well. babies become adults, brunettes become blondes, sprinkles of chest hair grow, trees grow, crooked teeth straighten, beards are grown, laugh lines appear – there are acute superficial differences, but the characters beneath the surface (one can imagine) are still relatively the same, albeit with some insane tattoos accrued along the way.

it's been quieting to look at these photographs and feel reassured of the constancy with which time grips us all. lately i have been perceiving myself as a stranger, so different from who i was yesterday, the year before, and ten years ago. to think of an image of myself when i was eleven and contrast it to how i feel now feels alienating and weird, like wearing the wrong shoe on the wrong foot. but i am reminded that perhaps life moves more in ripples than seismic waves. most of the time, anyway.

goodbye to an old friend

BBC News - Redwall author Brian Jacques dies aged 71

this is devastating. i spent a good part of my childhood reading the Redwall books, and i credit them with not only developing my literacy, but fostering in me an appreciation for nature and animals and good, hearty stories. my first ever email address (that i continued to use until probably the junior year of college) was named after my favorite character, Pikkle, a spritely mannered hare with a voracious appetite in the Salamandastron book (probably my favorite of the series).

when Twilight first started generating buzz and i got wind of its content, i lamented the lack of attention paid to writers such as Jacques and the heartiness of his story-telling. and i wondered why we could no longer live in a society where complex stories about virtuous characters undergoing harrowing journeys and epic battles to protect their home/ unravel ancient mysteries/ discover their identities/ defeat sinister adversaries all while singing songs and writing poems and eating decadent woodsy feasts could be appreciated.

i felt a twinge of sadness, something akin to guilt, when i stopped reading the books every year they came out (the last one i made any effort with was Marlfox). i felt horrible, like i had outgrown them or something, and i felt bad for losing interest in those characters and their stories. the way you feel bad about losing touch with your best friends from elementary school or high school.

anyway, this is doubly weird because not too long ago i was checking Wikipedia and reading his page and wondering if he was still writing books, found myself worrying about his age and hoping he'd live a long life and that one day i'd be able to write him a letter and thank him for writing. i guess this will have to do.

RIP, Mr. Jacques. and thank you for your stories. i hope my kids will one day enjoy reading your books as much as i did.

thankful for this

i'm extremely thankful this moment exists.
i'm thankful for Bruce and for Jon and for what they've done for my generation and for our country.

and of course, i'm extremely thankful for my family and friends and for music and laughter and all the good trappings of life.

it's been a hard year for a lot of people. speaking for myself, i lost my job and my sense of attachment and belonging to a community, lost track of who i was and what made me joyful and inspired. this was the year i got really into Bruce Springsteen. i mean, really into Bruce. i moved from California to Kentucky to New York, and on that 11-hour drive from the midwest, my home, to Central New York, where i was going to make a new home for myself with little more than hope and a determination not to fail, i listened to nothing but Bruce the entire time, and for the first time, i felt like those lyrics were speaking for me, rescuing me from a despair i didn't know i was in. there was a desperate hope i could identify with, and as i was driving through that region of America i could feel Bruce there on the road and in those dusty bleak industrial towns, felt him present in my situation, supplying evidence for hope and joy in darkness that makes it capable for people like me, people like us, to survive these dark and trying winters.

it's been a hard year for a lot of people, and it may only get harder. but there are sources of joy and beauty and strength that we need to remember. and for that, i'm thankful.



abridged transcript:

"I am not a music critic, nor historian, nor archivist. I cannot tell you where Bruce Springsteen falls in the pantheon of the American songbook. I cannot illuminate the context of his work, or its roots in the folk and oral history traditions of our great nation. But I am from New Jersey. So I can tell you what I believe. And what I believe is that Bob Dylan and James Brown had a baby. And they abandoned this child, as you can imagine at the time...interracial, same sex relationships being what they were...they abandoned this baby by the side of the road between the exit interchanges 8A and 9 on the Jersey Turnpike...that child was Bruce Springsteen...

I cannot tell you where Bruce Springsteen falls in the pantheon of the American songbook. ...But I didn't understand his music for a long time, until I began to yearn. Until I began to question the things that I was making and doing in my own life. Until I realized that it wasn’t just about the joyful parade on stage and the theatrics. It was about stories of lives that could be changed. And that the only status that you could fail to achieve is the status quo. The only thing, the only failure in life was not to make the effort to change our station.

And it resonated with me because, and I say this truly to him... I would not be here, God knows, not even in this business, if it were not for the inspirational words and music of Bruce Springsteen."

end of year crazies

my 6th graders are merely 10 days away from the 7th grade!
which means i am only 10 days away from being done with my two-year TFA commitment and what has been a wild and enormously challenging and life-changing experience. i would be sad if i didn't feel i am really really reaaally earning my indefinite vacation from teaching.

just last week, i had my first fist fight of the year, which is a record, i think. (i believe last year it took only a matter of months). even more impressive, it didn't technically happen in my classroom, but outside my door during the 5-minute passing period. still, it was between two of my students, and since they are now both suspended and having parent conferences, i feel i can safely say that even without me providing my students a count down, they have already begun their familiar end of year race to the finish rituals.

the last weeks of the school year in LA go a little like this:
the heat turns up, and the AC's not working, so the kids are sweaty, uncomfortable, and honestly, a little stanky. (and this has been a fantastically chill summer in terms of temperatures, yet breaking past 75 in Culver City.)
the CSTs were several weeks ago, at the beginning of May, so the kids think they're "done" with school and with learning and they're sole purpose in coming to school is to hang out.
the administrators and some teachers too are getting laid off and losing their jobs, so they start giving little shit what happens on campus.
things inevitably start spiraling out of control before a huge crack down occurs, in which every "problem child" at the school gets sent home early for the summer, an "extended suspension." some good kids and some smart kids get caught up in the mix when they jump into a riot or a fight with their friends and/or siblings, and i lose some of my favorite students, like Ciera who looks like my friend dylan from college, or Salvador, a well-mannered hispanic boy who got caught up in a fight defending himself after someone socked him in the face.

just now i got an automated phone call from the school principal, a message intended for parents, explaining that if students are not kept at home by their parents for the "remainder of their suspension" (that is, the rest of the year) they would be cited for trespassing and fined. wow, what a message for the parents and community. STAY OUT OF OUR SCHOOL YOU HAVE WORN YOUR WELCOME, WE WILL USE FORCE AND LITIGIOUSNESS AND DEMEANING LANGUAGE IF NECESSARY.

at least some good news:
this evening, i got an email from my student Anthony, who wrote me to tell me this:

hi its me anthony i am learning more math because my mom is helping me on it so i am ready for the final test.and by the way this is anthony(last name) in your first and second period class.

i will be glad for all the drama and oppressive incompetence of LAUSD to be over, but i sure am going to miss my students. truth be told, they are the only reason i've been able to keep this up the whole time.

behold! the first ever picture of me and my class (minus several suspended students).

-miss lee

wisdom, served

"How does a man die when he's deprived of the consolations of literature?"
"In one of two ways, petrescence of the heart or atrophy of the nervous system."

-Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle

*petrescence: (noun) the process of turning to stone; petrification

hatchlings

i do a pretty good job keeping a straight face, most of the time, even when encountered with the most bizarre and hilarious of irrational behaviors. what can i say, it's a skill you pick up quickly when teaching 6th graders. (in fact, i think it should be on a long list of criteria for people entering the teaching profession. following closely after charisma and passion.)

still, my kids find ways of surprising me. and in these certain moments, when my students surprise me with their kid-ness, i find it difficult to be cross and furrow my brow at them, and have to instead give in to chuckling a little bit, smiling largely, and trying to move past it as quickly as i can. it's fun for my kids to see Ms. Lee crack a smile or laugh along with them at something silly. i guess that they, and i, can forget that i'm human, so these little moments of honesty are welcome examples of our humility, which i think is why my students and i have felt so comfortable together and have managed to accomplish so much in our shared space.

three recent instances of what i'm talking about:

1) my student Bryan (hyperactive kid with a tendency to blurt out inappropriate things, get out of his seat, make rodent-like faces at my aide to freak her out, and make flatulent sounds any time anyone bends over to get something) comes to class (where we have a black and white uniform policy) wearing this shirt:

(found here, if you are interested in buying it)

2) my two smallest 7th graders Manuel and Luis are in my advisory class, but instead of quietly journaling, are exchanging sk8er pics they printed off a printer in some other class. this was delightfully endearing because of how small they are, and also how sweet of a gesture it seemed to be between the two friends (in their journals every week, they write to me about seeing each other over the weekend and spending saturday afternoons at the skate park). it was really cute watching these two little boys sharing a hobby with each other, even when they were supposed to be doing work in class.

3) my students are getting into Lady Gaga. coincidentally, so am i. every once in a while, one of my students will start singing the opening line to "Bad Romance," which amazingly has only proven to be amusing and strangely comforting (to know that we share some point of pop cultural coincidence) and has yet to be unnerving and annoying (YET!)

alligators in the sewers

i know, it's been a long time since i've posted, and shame on me for letting this fall by the wayside. before i forget, HAPPY 2010!(it's going to rock so much harder than 2009, don't you agree?) and also, a recollection of a dream i had last night:

my friend Dave who incidentally goes to grad school at UCLA (but who i haven't seen in months despite living just blocks away from each other) asked me to come over to check out this crazy-looking condo he was thinking about renting for him and his new girlfriend, who may or may not have been pregnant. when i got there, my immediate thoughts, i remember, were "sweet dang! how much money does a grad student at UCLA make?!" – because the place featured impressive (albeit confusing) post-modern architecture and, the real point of interest for me, an expansive lagoon/swamp/"koi pond" underneath the deck. this is what i felt most obligated to check out for my friend. i tip-toed closer to the water, and observed the alien-looking marine plant life, as well as some strange movements on the surface. i saw some kind of mechanical alligator head, which looked like a wind-up toy, but then i couldn't be sure, so i got creeped out and discouraged from venturing a toe into the water. i searched the depths, murky and deceptively deep, looking for fish and now, alligators.* i informed my friend that i believed water of unknown depths to be dangerous.

we moved further along the deck and i observed fins skimming the water. i looked on closely, tensely, awaiting dolphins or sharks. first, dolphins, and i thought about friendly swims with porpoises. but shortly after, sharks emerged too, and i thought of thrashing water and sharp bites on the ankles. i delicately lowered a shoe'd toe beyond the level of the deck, offering it up to the depths below to see how eager and hungry the marine ecosystem below me was, but Dave snatched me up before the sharks and alligators did.

we moved inside as my friend told me how much his new investment was going to be, "$500, 000 for rent." rent?!! i gasped. you can buy a house in kentucky for that much! ah yes, but he reasoned that he really wanted a nice place for his gf and "baby?" to live, and i concurred that, despite the potentially dangerous lagoon in his backyard, living with danger and a body of water nearby could be a pretty satisfying experience, albeit a uniquely LA one (and already attainable, at a much cheaper price – ah, the glories of private property ownership!)

we moved inside to his artfully minimalist living room and sat on his firm couch, and his dog came up to me and wrestled with my leg. i then remarked on how impressively wide and large his dog's head was, and told him what he had here wasn't a dog, but a polar bear. i cautiously played with it, then watched as the dog and another animal my friend seemed to be domesticating (an otter? a fox? a bear cub? i don't know, just that it had a red body and a furry face) started making out.

---

in the dream before that, i believe i was wandering around the city of chicago, looking for a place to stay while i was there for a conference. i had a map, but the lines showing streets were gone or faded and all i could see were the names of streets floating on a page, guessing at their intersections. my parents came and met me at a corner bakery where we talked to some business man in a suit and tie about staying in one of his many properties in the city but he seemed unconvinced i shouldn't just be homeless and continue wandering the city for the entire weekend.

---

earlier this week (or last week, as today is monday) i had another dream where my family was trying to swim across a river. i made it across and was looking down into the water, watching alligators swimming up to the shore, bellies up and skimming the surface, then flipping off the bank and catching things in their arms and legs. my dad was the last to swim across the river and i watched as he got closer to the bank of the river, at the same time an alligator came near enough to flip off the bank and onto my dad, its body sinking him into the water and swimming away with him. i woke up terrified and gasping, as if i too had been drug under water.

---

i looked up the symbolism of alligators in dreams, and Bella, "the voice of women" writes:

alligators and crocodiles in dreams can signify 'hidden danger'--a situation that you are aware of on an intuitive level but are not acknowledging in your conscious mind. This can be a simmering situation at work, a untrustworthy person, or sadly, anything that you can't really see coming but which strikes out of the blue and without mercy.

i don't listen too much to psychoanalysts, even tho i once wanted to be one. i don't read too much into my dreams either (i have a record of outlandish, vivid dreams that are more exhilarating than they are revelatory) – i have at least one intensely vivid dream a night (that i can remember).

that is to say, i don't write about this for any truth-seeking reason, but merely as an exercise in recording. and, writing. and also: because they are fun to remember. (but, since i mentioned it: stressed thinking about school (applying, attending, working at) and possible future lives, the dwindling winter break and how much i miss being home and particularly in this house, with my family, and the fragility of life and how delicate each moment is but how destructive we can be with each other in spite of life's fragile moments...)

much to think about, and it's almost time to sleep.
-stef


*once when i was very young (maybe 10?) my family went to vacation in south carolina. my dad, recently returned from a business trip to florida, brought me and my brother matching mickey mouse hats (my brother's was blue and green, and mine was red) and we wore them out onto this long wooden deck where the locals dangled pieces of chicken meat on metal hooks, in order to catch crabs. crabbing was an intricate process, from skewering the chicken bits just so on the hook so that the skin and fat would dangle off the bone enough to dance enticingly in the water, to sensing the slightest bit of tension on the rope, signifying the crab's eager tugging on the bait (you had to time it just right so that the crabs had enough of a taste to want more, and then slowly hoist them out of the water so you could slip a net under them), and we enjoyed it for hours on that wooden deck. until suddenly, i felt a sharp tug on my line, and looking down, ready to bring my catch up, realized i had baited an alligator. it was thrashing and tossing its head around, the rope coming out from between its teeth and leading up to the deck, where i had tied it just in front of me. terrified, i yelled for my dad, who came rushing to my rescue to wrestle the rope still enough so he could cut it. i remember feeling like the whole deck was going to come crashing down into those alligator-infested waters. in the excitement, my hat got knocked off my head, and i watched in horror as it fell down into the water.
that night, lying in bed, feeling i had just survived an alligator attack/ avoided an alligator eating, i imagined my hat, the hat my dad gave me, lying at the bottom of the swamp, alligators swimming around it, mickey mouse winking up at the surface, forever suspended in time.

sherlock you're not

just got off the phone with my aide. apparently, my 6th grade students think i'm pregnant because i haven't returned to school for 3 days. first order of business when i get back: reteaching the science lesson on collecting data and making inferences.

(actual reason: came down with the flu and a pretty nasty sinus infection. the doctor i saw seemed pretty grossed out by the drainage she witnessed in the back of my throat and told me, when i said i almost went into work that day, that if she were my boss, she'd rather i stayed at home than have to look at me. also: her office was decked out with signed photos from celebs, including the likes of owen wilson and the cast of friends. one particularly strange quote from dennis quaid read, "you can examine me anytime, doc!")

savage inequalities

this week in grad school, i read Shame of the Nation by Jonathon Kozol (author of the other famous book on educational inequity, Savage Inequalities) and rewatched Children in America's Schools.

i didn't know how to feel as i was reading about my own teaching experience, unnerved by the truth of what Kozol was writing and the accuracy with which he was depicting the inner city school where i work every day (i kept thinking, "this is my school"); stunned to realize that nothing has changed since these books were first published (Shame was published in 2005, Inequalities in 1991); disgusted that the concerns given so much media attention have still not been resolved or alleviated.

as so many educators and administrators know and ashamedly admit to knowing, the quality and maintenance of a school/district tell a child so much about what we think s/he is worth, what his/her education is worth. my greatest agony as a teacher has been seeing the disfunction and disorganization rampant throughout the school district, and my school's administration, and knowing full well that it trickles down to the students, and wanting so much to do anything i can to protect them from the disorder – making my room as clean and bright as possible, communicating with them as much as i can about any changes to the schedule or school events, keeping detailed records of all my students' emergency contacts in a portable rolodex, being explicit about the purposes of all their classes – lest it be unclear from administration or other teachers why they are required to go to advisory, for example.

that was an interesting story, btw. i had my advisory students, 7th graders, do a free write on what they thought the purpose of advisory is. most of my students answered with something to the effect of "advisory is for students to get to school on time [and not miss their important classes because they woke up late]". one of my students, Andrew, wrote, very astutely, that

"Advisory is a wake up class. When I say wake up class I mean some students sleep late... and without advisory the students will sleep in most of their classes."

alternatively, when i asked my students to write about what they want advisory to be, they respond, uniformly, that they desire activities, games, the time to converse with one another, art, reading, writing, and "fun!" the same student i quoted before wrote,

"This year I want advisory to be fun and exciting,
so exciting it will make students want to come to school."

in a norm-setting activity this week, i probed the same advisory class to discuss the realities at school, the things they see on a daily basis, and the ideals, the dreams they had for our school and our community. the observations they shared were pretty telling, but most striking was this list from my student Marta:

Reality: I see lots of fights.
Ideal: I want to see peace in school.
Reality: I see some walls that have writing on them, tagging, graffiti.
Ideal: I want to see more murals on the walls.

interestingly, in stark contrast to the assumptions of administrators, school officials, and even faculty regarding what students need during a school day (that they need a prolonged "passing period" to get to their core classes on time), what students themselves identify as necessary is stimulation. clearly what the school is offering is not engaging or meaningful enough to motivate them to come on time, and makes students feel as if school is an unsavory task, an unpleasant obligation. what the school is lacking is excitement, beauty, and life.

this year has been interesting so far. it is still too early to tell how my practice as an educator will grow and change in the coming months, but i am steadfastly trying to listen more to my students and give them a chance for voice and self expression. i am giving more time for collaborative conversation in my lessons, and more activities that require my students to argue and justify their claims (even in math!) i am still undecided whether the community i am seeking to build within my four-walled classroom is enough to combat the negative energies outside, and if the insularity only serves to negate the long-lasting lessons i hoped to instill, but the attempt alone has been worth the energy.

oh, and one more thing: my advisory? not a single person has been late since the start of week 3. i'd say that's pretty good already. :-)

-ms. lee

teaching updates!

hi all,

sorry for the lack of posts and writing. i'm hoping i can find good reason to write here again, but i'm happy to say my absence is due to the fact that i've been spending my time and energy doing other things.

the most significant thing being that i've started teaching again. i am now nearing the end of week 2. year 2 has gotten off to a good start so far, but i am wary of getting too hopeful and optimistic. i find myself constantly tense in my classes, sensitive to every movement of my students, remembering how small habits could eventually expound into mammoth annoyances (pencil sharpening, bathroom breaks, whispering, and tardies being the biggest red flags in my class so far).

ben came in the day before school started to help me decorate and clean my classroom, and it's actually a clean place where i feel happy coming to work every day, and the kids seem to love it.

(embarrassing realization: the poster looks like it says "Welcome to Ms. Lee's Ass" – which, i assure you, it does not.)

i had the first week of classes planned out, and have been working hard to always plan one week ahead of time (so far it's been working well but i worry about the weight of all my classes and preps once the year really gets going). having a clear and consistent plan for my students from the beginning of the year has already saved me lots of frustration and anxiety, and i'm much happier about teaching my students and my content area as a result of having a quiet and orderly classroom. i've worked really hard this year at establishing classroom norms and fostering community values and collaboration among my students.

students working together to test strategies for building the tallest tower of cups.

as a result, i've had much better success with group projects and even more impressive, having my students self-regulate and resolve their own problems, whether its personal quarrels with classmates, or confusion regarding a class task. i've also established a comment box for the students to drop in notes to me, which so far has helped me understand the needs of my students better, and also given them an outlet to submit ideas.

in short, i'm happy to report that there's less time to spend here, because there's so much to do away from the computer! i'm finally seeing my ideals of democracy and community realized in my own classroom, and i finally feel like i'm doing something good for these students (rather than feeling like i'm damaging my students permanently by being an inexperienced first year teacher, which was the general sentiment i had last year).

more later, but now, some lesson planning.

-ms.lee

lesson from my father #88: Love.

... That was as far as we got before we arrived in San Jose. I would like to hear more about Dad's life growing up and learning more about the family, which still remains a mystery. How did he meet Mom? How did he know, when did he know, that he loved her?

My cousin Sam told me his dad, my Uncle Danny, would wait for his mom after class every day at BYU. They were students and didn't have a lot of money, and the popular thing to eat on campus were these 15 cent hamburgers, because they were so cheap. But, they would always sell out really fast, and my Aunt Pearl, Sam's mom, had one of the later classes. So my Uncle Danny would go and save her a place in line. He won her over one 15 cent hamburger at a time.

Uncle Tony, Jocelyn explained at the funeral, met Aunt Evelyn when they both worked for China Airlines. He stood outside the terminal waiting for her every day, with an umbrella so she wouldn't get wet when it rained (and it rains a lot there). He did this for 7 months before she finally agreed to go out with him.

I love these stories about my uncles because it makes me nostalgic for the kind of love that is hard-earned and a long time coming, a dedicated, patient love. Hearing these courtship stories doesn't surprise me at all, knowing the kind of supportive, devoted husbands and fathers my uncles are, but they remind me that romance and love aren't make believe or reserved solely for the movies, that extraordinary deeds are performed by extraordinary gentelemen every day, and that I'm just so lucky to have such men in my life as uncles, as a father. They remind me that love isn't so much about the grand, dramatic gestures, but in the quiet dedication it takes to love someone so powerfully every day – the love it takes to be there every day with an umbrella when it rains, or the 30 cents when you haven't got a dime for yourself – and never lessen or waiver in knowing that you would be happy doing this every day for this person because it brings them happiness. Selfless, constant Love.

...As my dad pulled up to the curb to drop me off as he always does while he goes to look for parking, he tells me, as he always has, that the only thing he wants is "for [me] to be happy." My dad has never been controlling or even overbearingly curious, like my mom. He has been supportive of my decisions without injecting too much of his own opinion. As with my college decision, my decision on which high school to go to, and my career aspirations, so with my love life; Dad was there to offer support, but never judge. He just wants me to be happy.

Even though I'd heard it a million times before, this time I smiled, gripped his hand, and kissed him on the cheek. These last few weeks have been incredibly hard for my family, but, at the same time, it has made me remember we have so much to be grateful for. There is so much beauty, so much life, and so much love in the world, it's hard to remain sad for very long before you're overwhelmed with gratitude.


----

to all the fathers and the uncles, and especially to my own,
happy father's day.


with so much love,
stef

transatlanticism

do you ever think you know a song, listen to it for an entire period of your life, put it on playlists or put it on before you go to bed, hum it while walking to work or school or etc., but for years you don't listen to it and it gets buried under new music and podcasts and you feel like you kinda outgrew it. and then one day, you remember something about the lyrics, one haunting phrase ("i need you so much closer"), and then you are compelled to re-excavate it, whereupon you discover what you may have known before but had forgotten, your new circumstances giving you new cause – or perhaps reminding you why – you liked it in the first place.

it's like falling in love all over again.

today, it was this:

the atlantic was born today and i'll tell you how:
the clouds above opened up and let it out.

I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere
when the water filled every hole.
and thousands upon thousands made an ocean,
making islands where no island should go.
oh no.

those people were overjoyed; they took to their boats.
I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.
the rhythm of my footsteps crossing flood lands to your door have been silenced forever more.
the distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
it seems farther than ever before
oh no.

I need you so much closer

-Death Cab for Cutie, "Transatlanticism"