the future

in the future, we won't travel by plane, or automobile, or even hovercraft, as the movies might suggest.

no, the real way of the future will be thru miniaturization. we will make machines that can shrink us down, to pocket size, and we will mail ourselves in envelopes, padded with bubble wrap (for protection as well as pass-time – we will prepare ourselves with plastic cocktail sabers and pop bubble wrap in transit). this will be the only way to travel.

upon arrival, we will slice thru our deflated receptacles, emerging into the lap or onto the palm of friends/family. hello!

this will also be the way of sending greetings by post. no more tacky recordable cards, no awkward scrawled messages. our grateful recipients will be able to hear our sentiments from our mouths, and our hearts.

and to return us to our original state, our friends and family will merely have to place us in a tub of warm water, where we will gradually grow to full size overnight.

this will be the way of the future.

-stef

observations, february ed.

time passes slowly when you're paying attention to it and "a watched pot never boils." why is that? why are the laws of physics and time bendable only when they result in our disappointment?

to illustrate my point, some facts: there are 16 weeks left of school and 5 weeks before spring break. it is only february 2009, the second semester has just begun, but my students are already growing out of their 6th grade innocence, starting fights, using obscene language, defying authority, referencing (and imitating) sexual acts, and acting like obnoxious, entitled teenagers. each day i gratefully mark off another day from my calendar but i know very well that 16 weeks like this will feel infinitely punishing.

another fact: no matter how much ppl say that keeping busy helps to pass the time, it simply isn't true. i work 8 hours a day and go to night school, i exercise vigorously for 2 hours every other day, i write when i can and cook, and sometimes i even read, i eat, i shower, i brush my teeth, i watch tv, i talk to friends and go for lonely walks, i get stuck in traffic, i occasionally go shopping, i watch movies, i chew my carrots slowly, i go to sleep, but the only time that passes quickly is on the weekends.

---

other sad truths: now that i'm deprived of pleasant companionship, i'm eating more. when my boyfriend was home, i lost 7 pounds b/c i was eating normal portions again. the love and companionship was filling, so i could eat less and still feel full. now that he's gone and i'm alone again, i'm eating more, eating constantly. food is a convenient companion: an apple in my backpack, a box of crackers in my lunchbox, granola bars in the car's passenger seat. perhaps i'm eating to fill some void. maybe i'm eating to grow a thick layer of fat between me and my surroundings. i convinced myself once i was bulking up in an effort to intimidate my students (still not there yet). eating is a pass-time i use to fill in gaps between activities or stressful tasks. it is a practice engaged to fill up time between now and the summer. i expect to gain lots of weight before then.

i'm glad that this is not a leap year. that is one less day i have to worry about being in the classroom. i'm thankful for the little things.

EDIT: i just got back from the gym. i've already gained 2 pounds in the week he's been gone. 16x2... that's more than a third of myself i'm gaining before this is over...

-stef

new wisdom

i would like to append to my last post, as a new realization occurred to me, just now, as i was finishing my soup:

it takes a brave person to admit failure and inadequacy and step out of the way for progress to occur.
but, it takes an even braver person to admit failure, change, adjust, and reflect on her inadequacies and be the progress that needs to occur.

i just hope i can be the latter.

-stef

admitting failure

i came to a significant realization this morning:

it takes courage to admit you are not suited to help someone. because we all desire to be wanted and needed in some way, it takes love and courage to realize you are unfit and inadequate to be what someone else wants you to be, and walk away. to do this, one must deal with being accused of selfishness, immaturity, callousness, and self-importance. but i think the act of coming to understand you are not the person someone else needs is actually an act of considerable humility and self-knowing.

i think i've spent most of my life looking for ways to help ppl, or to change the world and make it a better place, without realizing that i had been selfish about it. i was thrill-seeking, but replace "thrill" with "good vibes." i was an endorphins fiend. i like feeling good about myself, and i like doing things that make me feel good. activism, i suppose, was my drug of choice.

another way to understand today's realization is the distinction between theory and practice. in theory, i believe every child is entitled to a quality education, but in practice, i am not the one best suited to provide that education. in theory, inner-city students with disabilities should be just as capable to meet educational standards as their peers in the suburbs. but in practice, they can only do so if they have a teacher committed to the tedious and wearing task of getting them there (and i don't have the patience or endurance to be that teacher they need). in theory, i am a capable and experimental teacher with ambitious ideas for transformative democratic education and student empowerment. in practice, i am a struggling, deeply unhappy special education teacher, disempowered and disillusioned because of my failure to effectively practice what i believe in theory, and my growing lack of passion for education.

i accept full responsibility for my own misery, knowing that if i had only known myself better and been more humble, i would not have taken on the task of teaching special ed in south central LA, thinking i could handle whatever challenges were thrown at me. some things are beyond yr range of ability. it's not even that i had delusions of grandeur, thinking i could change the whole system of education by teaching 60+ special ed students. i was just hoping to make a difference in the lives of a few. but now i am facing the reality that i might emerge from the experience 2 years later and regret the attempt at all, thinking both my students and i would have been better off if i'd never stepped foot into a special ed classroom. moreover, i feel i may be driven away from education forever. that makes me feel deeply sad and lost, since i thought teaching was the way i would make an impact on the world.

it occurs to me this morning that sometimes it is the more honest and necessary thing to step away from a situation, knowing you are beyond your means, that there is nothing for you to contribute. it is knowing that you want to be able to help others, but that you are not the one best able to do it, and stepping out of the way to let those who can do what you cannot.

return to the single life

i miss this.

if you read this regularly and wondered where i'd disappeared to in the last 2 weeks, yr answer is this: i've been here all along, but away from my computer! what do you think about that?!

the truth is that i spend far more time on the internet when i am alone. i used to worry i have become technology-dependent, but i realize now that it's just a proxy for communicating with ppl i can't live without. hm, well, that and a convenient distraction. but i could quit if i wanted to, and i did!

2 weeks was the exact amount of time my boyfriend was in LA. we were making up for lost time. 6 months is a long time not to see someone who makes you obliviously and ridiculously happy. but now he's gone again, still in transit on his return to that lucky country of Turkey. and now things are quiet and lonely. it's back to cooking dinners for two and only eating half, saving leftovers in tupperware containers, not drinking wine and lighting candles, brushing my teeth all by myself, taking a week to finish a carton of orange juice, taking a week and a half to finish a loaf of bread, waiting in line at the grocery store all by myself, sorting receipts and grading papers, working out obsessively and yes, blogging, twittering, tumblring, and checking email because now i have the time.

there are infinite daily events in modern life that have the potential to be either extremely gratifying or intensely miserable. these ritual behaviors can be vastly improved by pleasant companionship, eased by a reassuring hand or the proximity of a familiar human touch. unfortunately, these are frequently things we take for granted, and these events comprise the majority of every day. and as with so many things, we notice and lament the lack more than we appreciate the presence, sometimes. it is bad enough to feel so alone, but then something as small as getting into a car and looking over to the passenger seat and realizing there's no one there to talk to or hold yr hand thru rush hour traffic, or to notice all the leftover pasta in the pan after you're already full, those are things that make you heartsick.

coming back to my apartment last night after dropping Ben off at the airport encapsulated the feeling that lingers this evening as i write this, that will probably persist in all its manifest forms for the next 4 months until i see him again or have another visitor: an empty apartment, only my clothes in a messy heap on the chair, pillows stacked on one side of the bed, one set of towels, one toothbrush in a cup.

i once wrote that returning to an empty apartment after weeks of constant companionship is perhaps the most depressing experience imaginable. but i was wrong. what saddens me most is returning to the way life is, rather than the way it could be.

-stephan!e

callousness

teaching special ed in south central LA is an extremely trying task. (as i type this, i'm thinking, 'that is the understatement of the century!' there are no words in the english language – any language – to describe the anguish and frustration that accompany my job. in fact, those emotions are perhaps better expressed and communicated by the animal kingdom, where the guttural and primitive sounds of pain and distress found in feral animals are more appropriate for my sense of life-threatening anxiety.)

anyway, the point is that my job is difficult. and as with most things potentially stressful or dangerous, one must find ways to adapt, methods and strategies by which to adjust to your surroundings. in the name of survival, you do what you can to change your surroundings, and when your surroundings don't change, you change yourself. adaptation. evolution. selection. you pick and choose what to process, what to act on, you filter your thoughts, you let some things roll off so you can keep rolling on.

my recent environment-induced adaptations have included: reclusiveness, watching TV, eating a lot of ice cream, superstitions, a nagging urge to start smoking, and increased emotional numbing.

the last is the most troubling b/c it is at once the most necessary and the most regrettable. i think that the trouble with the school environment is that it tends to bleach everyone of their humanity. in order to get thru my day, i have to be able to tune out the 1,000+ insults and slurs i hear my students tossing around. i tried at the beginning to reprimand and deliver a lecture for every "stupid" "retarded" "faggot" "homo" "nigger" etc. i heard, but that soon became a herculean task. it would hurt every time i heard such hateful words used, so i had to deaden my sensitivity to such things. if i stopped class every time i heard someone call me or another student a bitch, we would never get through all the standards we need to by May.

adaptation, selection, you pick and choose your battles because there's no time or energy for everything.

it feels strange, but not surprising, to open a science book and see that a student wrote "Fuck you Ms. Lee. You are a chinese bitch" on the plate tectonics vocabulary and not really care, shrug my shoulders, get a black marker pen and cross it out so that the next student doesn't get more excited by the graffiti than the part about the San Andreas fault. if i let it get to me, i wouldn't be ready for the next group of students coming in for their math lesson, and i have to be ready to teach them how to solve a one-step linear algebraic equation.

what bothers me most, however, is that this callousness, this thick skin i grow to get through my day, also prevents me from feeling the gratitude and relief i should feel when, while picking up trash left on the floor, i come across a desk with pencil markings on the tabletop. the graffiti reads, "Ms. Lee is a nice teacher. you should respect her." or the one on the other desk, which says, in big block letters with swirly lines around it, "Ms. Lee: good teacher 4 lyfe." these things should cause me to smile and feel lucky, but i shrug, move the desk back into its row, and wish my kids would stop marking up the furniture.

later, i think back on the day i had: a student accused me of racism, saying, "chinese ppl hate black ppl." another one climbed up on a table and tried to jump out an open window, all for a little attention and the laughs of his peers. 2 students were sent to the dean's office, and i caught another one for ditching class. it's February and i still can't get this class to sit still or be attentive long enough to teach them to multiply decimals and fractions.

if i hadn't grown these emotional callouses, i shudder to think about the emotions i'd be feeling right now.

instead, what i feel: relief that the day is done, and a slight smile in remembering that a certain someone is coming back to visit me today. i'm hoping that some time away will help me remember what it's like to laugh again, and be a kid myself. hopefully this recovers my humanity. hopefully i'm not completely dead yet.

hopefully there is still time to save this vestigial sense of feeling.

-stephan!e

strange powers

i think my sense of smell is my super power. hyperosmia it's not, but i think it bears mentioning.

perhaps this explains my over-sentimentality, my strong nostalgia and sensitivity to the passage of time. smell is linked, neurologically, to memory. it is also, as far as i am aware, the only sense that doesn't dull with the passage of time. my eyes will eventually deteriorate until i'm blind, and i will deafen in my old age from listening to too much loud music, and even my sense of touch and taste will deaden. but smell, well, i hope smell lasts forever. even if i can't see, i could still find my way around a life full of memories, just by following my nose. existential whiskers, that's all i need.

make believe

love is real-life magic. it is made of the same dreams and imagination that animates and personifies fictional characters in stories, or stuffed animals you talk to when you're young. it is the ability to communicate invisibly and share secrets no one else understands. but sometimes it can take on the appearance of being very lonely.

two long-distance lovers communicating via satellite from opposite sides of the world look the same to an outside observer as a child playing with a toy: as i slump over my laptop camera talking to my boyfriend, my face inches away from the screen, i completely forget that we are not actually in the same room, that we are not actually inches away from one another's faces, that we are not actually holding each other but using our laptops as proxies. i can immerse myself in conversation for hours like this, emerging only later to resume life in all its ordinary ways.

i think love is one of those neotenous traits overlooked by the majority of the population because of its mythification in popular culture. that is, we fail to see how the make-believe of child's play can bear any resemblance to true love because we see one as childhood whimsy, while the other is considered one of those sacred "truths" holding society together. really, we must learn to accept that they are mirrors of the same belief, that something beautiful and magical can, must, exist beyond this ordinary surface.

don't lose this again.

this song [mp3] disappeared from the airwaves after my harddrive crashed, but stayed in my memory.

and tonight it creeped back, demanding to be heard.

it's not the lyrics, but the phrase, "soon enough," that today, seems to be all i need, all i want to hear. enough to remind me that some things return, some things you retain, some things you never lose.

soon enough. soon enough. work. love. soon enough. 

8 more days.
-stephan!e

year of the ox

it is Chinese New Year. i spend it with my uncle's family and a group of his college friends, who work together at a construction equipment wholesale factory. the party takes place in the warehouse/office building of their company.

the space is confusing. i wander around trying to figure out what this place is. i observe: a pool table. a poker room/office. a dance hall/karaoke lounge/bar (where i currently write my notes). living quarters (i learn later that the workers stay here one night of the week). poker cards lie on a desk next to a stack of business cards, a pool table doubles as a desk. the building seems corporate, but screams "PARTY!!" and there are no definite lines between the two. i decide i like this approach to business, and stroll back towards the party.

as with any Chinese holiday, the food is central to the celebration, and each with its own symbolism. there are trays of glutinous rice balls, noodle dishes of various combinations (the long noodles signify long life), and every imaginable meat of the land and sea: chicken, pork, beef*, fish (for good luck in the next year), shrimp, squid and octopus. fruits a-plenty too: citrus of every imaginable size (clementines, mandarins, tangerines, navel oranges, kumquats), big shiny grapes, and pineapple (the mandarin word for pineapple – "fon li" – sounds like the word for "good fortune").

my aunt takes me around the room, introducing me to everyone as a teacher in the LA school district. one of the older ladies looks on me in disbelief, remarking that i look like a "xiao pengyu" (literally "little friend", meaning "a small child.") one of the older men she introduces me to knows my father. they are about the same age. when my aunt asks me if i think he looks "nyen chien" ("light in years", "young") i say yes, and he jokes that he has had many facelifts. he pulls his cheeks back with his palms, and grins. he then points to the belt holding up his pants, telling me, "this belt i'm wearing is made of all my old skin!" he guffaws and wanders off to eat something sweet.

i befriend the small old man sitting to my right. he is shrunken, but has a fine set of teeth, a strange combination. i get him hot water and soup and and offer him a mandarin, of which he only eats half (it is sour, he squeezes his face together in disapproval). i imagine the two of us make a funny pair, the oldest and youngest in the party, friends b/c no one can understand what we say and b/c we do not wish to talk, just sit, eat, and watch. i overhear my little friend talking later with a group of men about visiting Vegas and going to strip clubs. my companion is, apparently, familiar with the "classy" ones. he is a man of scrutinizing tastes in women and oranges.

i notice the old men across from me laughing, touching cups and enthusiastically finishing off their drinks. later i realize they have been hiding a jug of whiskey under the table, mixing it into their drinks. i've witnessed at least 4 rounds by this point.

the party eventually reaches a critical point – when just the right balance of food and alcohol has been consumed and the spontaneous karaoke begins. i sit in a leather couch in the back of the lounge/bar, remembering how earlier during dinner i heard one of the drunk men across the table declare that he was "ready to sing!" he tells everyone that his musical reprisals aid his digestion.

after observing many eager karaoke renditions of The Carpenters and Chinese oldies, it occurs to me that karaoke is never spontaneous, but always the sensible conclusion to a new year's party. the party-goers gradually take to the mic to sing their favorite songs. i watch 2 women begin to timidly dance, one leading the other around, alternating between tango and foxtrot.

i sit in the back, smiling, regretting those wasted years of Chinese school – never learning enough to be functionally literate to read the karaoke lyrics.


*edit: i realize now, that there was actually NO beef served yesterday. i wonder if that is b/c this is the year of the ox, and to eat beef would be negative symbolism and a bad start to the new year.

post-Inauguration Day notes

post-Inauguration Day realizations:
-i remember being extremely turned off by the strong Christian fundamentalist undertones in the speeches and ceremony, and especially by this guy:

(edit: and how fitting. the video, like the man, just doesn't seem to want to shut the hell up. it starts without you wanting it to, one of my ultimate peeves when it comes to internet usability: the automatic video that creates loud obnoxious sound when you don't want it)
(edit 2: fixed! - 1/25)

Warren's invocation made me extremely uncomfortable, thinking how the separation of church and state is really just an empty promise. and the part about asking forgiveness from Almighty God when we disgrace our fellow human beings and the environment made me extremely upset and angry, as we are fully aware a war (a genocide) is raging in Gaza, and we are content to just "ask forgiveness," shrug off any awareness of reality, as if it was all in God's plan. that kind of rhetoric is dangerous and had me gritting my teeth the whole time.

-the hope/change sheen is wearing off pretty quickly, too. i've been a huge cynic/buzzkill since november anyway, but i can pretty safely say that i am ready for the novelty of the moment to wear off so America can quit fantasizing and day-dreaming and snap back to reality. things do not change overnight. i don't know why i'm not as excited as everyone else seems to be about the new administration, i guess b/c i don't see substantiating empirical proof for the improvement, and i honestly cannot grasp the significance of having the first Black President. i know, i know, it must be absurd/impossible for other ppl to understand, but i, personally, do not feel that sense of awe and wonderment that everyone else seems to have in seeing a Black man as President. it does not surprise me that Obama is President now, and it makes perfect sense, so i guess i just don't get what all the fuss and pageantry and adoration is about, b/c frankly it just makes sense. i dunno, call me racist if you want to, the funny thing is that i think i feel this way precisely b/c i don't see race as any factor in it.

-i remember being surprised by how charged and passionate my students were around Election Day. i noticed many of my students taking vehement opposition to one another's political views, showing off their limited knowledge of campaign slogans and parroting rhetoric in transparent efforts to back up their support of a candidate they'd chosen to represent a deeper-seated world view and political affiliation. i noticed all my Black kids were for Obama, wore shirts with his face emblazened on the chest, would yell his name as if it were a cheer, would cheer at the mention of his name. the interesting thing about this was that usually, my Hispanic kids would grow silent, look sullen and sink down in their seats, would tell me later when i could hear them whisper, "i wanted Hilary to win." the braver ones would pretend to joke in class, "McCain for President!" what i came to realize later was this stance was chosen not out of opposition, but as reaction. true, some of my Hispanic students' parents probably legitimately supported Hilary and her pro-Hispanic community campaign. but what it came down to, perhaps, was a sign of bitterness towards what had obviously become a race race. when the nomination and the election came to be framed as a race issue, it became less about issues, and more about identity and belonging. who was going to be recognized and included, and who was going to be left out? when it seemed like Obama would win by indisputable margins, the election discussion in my classes became about control, and controlling who gets to stand for one's identity: "if this Presidency is supposed to represent me and my country, i want someone i choose, not someone thrust upon me. i want someone who can understand being the outsider, i want someone who can understand being left out, i want someone who can understand being misunderstood, i want a woman, i want an underdog, i want a Republican..."

cherry blossom

i emerged from the shower this evening, and opened up a bottle of lotion: "cherry blossom."

the name is misleading, it causes me to think more of fruit than flowers, so the smell seems surprisingly, almost overwhelmingly florid, rosy, clean. it is feminine, a womanly fragrance.

the smell reminds me of my mother, and watching her get ready for dinner parties when i was a little girl, standing in the bathroom of my parents' bedroom in her bra, her hair recently blowdried and swept to the sides of her face and ears. she has not yet put on her glasses, and i can see her face clearly, she never applies makeup. i watch as she gently pats lotion on her face, her cheeks rosy and flushed from the steam of the shower. the only beauty modification my mother ever used was perfume: she would dab it gingerly on her wrists, her neck, the crook of her arm. the scent would waft from the bathroom to the bedroom, and follow her wherever she'd go. after my parents left the house, the smell of my mother would always remain in the air, a trail of fragrance up and down the stairs, hanging in the air by the kitchen, lingering by the door where she stepped into her shoes.

since i was a little girl, my mom would always offer her perfume to me to try, to smell, to dab on my hands. she loved to buy me little packs of perfume, or obtain miniature bottles from the department store as trinkets, as if for fun. i always refused them. it wasn't necessarily the smell itself i adored. it was that image of my mom, standing in the bathroom, clean and void of any pretense in her appearance, my first idea of female beauty, and what i thought beauty (and my mother) smelled like.

so tonight, as i was applying dollops of this cherry blossom lotion to my skin, i was reminded of all these things and had to put the lotion away in a drawer, because the smell was just too close to that distant smell i remember, that it made me too sad to use it, and reluctant to grow into womanhood myself.

Inauguration Day notes

end of an era?

i had the unique pleasure of experiencing Inauguration Day at school, with my 6th graders.

in retrospect, it was a better experience than if i had been alone in my apartment. something about the public school environment has a way of making tangible momentous occasions (9/11, Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine). maybe it is the atmospheric effect of all those pairs of eyes focusing on one thing at the same time. the sense of unity in experience among the disparate and disconnected.

a sample of my observations:
-homeroom, Brandon says, "i'm gonna be the first Latin-American President!" (aaww...)
-Orlando interjects, "i heard Obama's gonna turn the White House black!"
-while watching Inauguration in auditorium: quiet settles over the entire space (which NEVER happens!) then, at first sight of Obama, cheering swells over the students, i smile, chilled.
-moments later, the assistant principle blows 3 sharp blasts on her whistle, yells into the microphone to stop. too much of a good thing.
-was that stock footage of the Grand Canyon (during Aretha Franklin's song)? weird.
-tears welled up while contemplating this moment in history. soon ceased as i have to snap to, reprimanding a student for chewing gum and smacking a girl in the head.

Change may be coming to Washington, but things in School stay pretty much the same.
-stephan!e

what's yr scene, man?

from here.

future past

i had a dream that i was back on Miami's campus, and it was the future because everything was so old looking: the brick streets had cracks in them, little wiry grass blades growing up through the fissures. the bell towers looked dilapidated, rusted, verging on collapse. everything was gray and sepia-toned.

the other futuristic thing was that they had erected a huge saloon/ movie theatre on the edge of campus – a center for tawdry activities. men in britches and high hats, with unruly facial hair and mean swaggers. i was walking over treacherously uneven sidewalk to meet a friend at the theatre and buy a ticket for whatever was showing. and it occured to me how funny it was that no matter how "future"-like the future can be, there always remains some connection to the past, some nostalgia or fetishism. and it doesn't seem odd, these lingering glimpses of past, but right, so very right.

leisure

listening to my little cousin make bird noises as he sleeps. i am cradling a book of short stories in my arm, drowsy from drinking too many glasses of milk. it is not yet 10:30 and the house has grown quiet with weariness.

it is finally the weekend. we are free to fall asleep early.

layer cake

night-swimming has become the one indulgence i allow myself every week. and it’s a good choice: it’s exercise that’s good for my bad hip. i like to secretly race the older macho men in their speedos, observe the human body as it moves underwater (the water aerobics class in the shallow water brings to mind images of elephants swimming, clumsy limbs thrashing through water), everything illuminated and given a milky glow by the underwater lamps, like submarine headlights. and at the end of my laps, i like to float on my back, my ears submerged in water, imagining myself out at sea in endless darkness, navigating by the stars.

the delightful thing about swimming, and perhaps swimming in a pool in particular, is that it heightens your senses. you feel reconnected to yourself, notice the movement of your own body, feel your spine lengthening, listen to and feel your own breath. you feel graceful and amphibious. and the low resistance silence provides such a stimulating contrast to the other 95% of my waking day.

the most alluring and troubling heightened sense? smell. chlorinated pool water has the magic ability of collecting all the smells from the surrounding day, and stacking them on the water, like layer cake. as my face skims the surface of the water for a breath, i open my mouth and suck in the potent smells of the day: sunlight and sunscreen, burnt tire rubber from LA traffic, manure and mowed grass, the charcoal smokiness of the barbeque down the street, leaves and a smell i associate with crickets, sweat, skin, b.o.

sometimes the smells are so thick and rich, i crinkle my nose, sneeze underwater, or get teary-eyed, like i’ve just sliced into an onion. other times, they remind me of the way it feels when you’re at summer camp, heading back inside over tall grass after a day in the sun, the mixture of grass and dusk creating a haze, and you feel safe lingering in it.

super powers

i'm beginning to suspect my students have some sort of "despair radar" installed in their brains. just when my mind starts flirting with resignation, they show me they can be the perfect students i've always wanted and always hoped they'd be. they are attentive, excited about PEMDAS, begging for more homework, and surprise me by correctly answering a challenge problem on their own. they stay in their seats and take notes eagerly, looking up at me when finished with a task to let me know they are ready for more.

of course, the converse is always true, too. just as i started to have a wonderful day, just as my sense of possibility was on its way to being restored, the next batch rolls in, hollering, whacking furniture, shaking booties. after disrespecting me and their peers, i yell at 2 boys to "get out of my classroom!" thankfully, the bell rings. i lock the door behind them, i don't want to deal with another child until after i've had a lunch break and a walk-around.

somehow, things always end up coming back to equilibrium. i am no more grateful or anxious than i was this morning, or yesterday. so it goes, i guess. all things in their right place.

-stephan!e

moves

i reluctantly returned to LA last night. felt sick from high altitude, bad tomato juice, and separation anxiety. went to bed late, dizzy and alone, and woke up early, roused awake at 5 am by screaming from the apartment next door. still alone.

i uploaded photos and videos to remember the last 3 weeks i had, as a sort of cheering tactic. included: this video from my birthday. penguin-like moves. my brother yelling "save it for the club."


birthday dance from stephan!e lee on Vimeo.

hoping this semester goes quickly,
stephan!e

this digital life can be tough to keep up with...

this break from school has been blissful. i've been staying up late eating and drinking with my parents, reading and writing creatively for the internet, looking at beautiful pictures and sharing music with my bro, watching strange movies my mother picks out just to share a warm space in the house with her, playing tennis with my dad. and i bought a swimming cap with a pirate skull on it, hilarious. i am dreading my return to LA, a lonely existence, meals by myself, traffic, tons of school and work. i'm going to miss laughing and smiling so much and being immediately happy when i wake up.

another day and i'll be gone. back to empty echoes in this large house.

i wish i had more time to write and think, read and write, read and think. i've been collecting as many thoughts and memories as i can, hoping to piece them together like a quilt of my life. i imagine collecting these stories in a small book i'll make over the summer, and shop-dropping them all over the country (and Europe!?) when i'm travelling with Ben before returning for year 2 of this ill-advised stint in teaching.

i'll begin posting some of these short, Brautigan-style stories here, very soon.

-stephan!e


UPDATE (1/14/09): i've decided to name the future book/zine "ey!Q" – a phrase with no particular meaning, but i like the combination of letters, aesthetically, and i like that it was a typo (intended to say "hey!"). you could read it "eek!", or "I. Q." as well. anyway, writing from ey!Q labeled with the tag "eyQ." check it.\