Everyone has an inner light

As you know, I went to a Quaker school from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade.  And as cheesy as it sounds, I really feel like Quakerism has shaped how I aspire to live.  I guess I would say that the one belief that I've tried to adopt as my own personal philosophy of life is the idea that "there is that of God in everyone".  In other words, everyone has some good in them.

Look, I know that you deal with people everyday who are annoying or frustrating or say hurtful comments or do hateful things.  There are many days when I'm right there with you, complaining about this person or bitching about that person.  But at the end of the day, I just cannot believe that those people don't have even one redeeming quality about themselves.

And it's one thing to write off adults as being "bad", considering that they should be mature enough to make moral decisions, but it really pisses me off when kids are similarly labelled.  I have interacted with adults who obviously have no love or kindness for a certain child, and I don't understand it.  In my sophomore year of college, I was student teaching at a public elementary school in West Philly, and one day a substitute teacher said to me, "I don't know why I bother.  They're all crack babies anyway."  (I wish I could say that I stood up for those kids and told the woman how wrong I thought she was to say something horrible like that, but I think I just sort of mumbled an incoherent disagreement and walked away.)  Of course, not everyone is as scathingly judgmental as this woman was.  But I have seen too many adults (many of them teachers) dismiss a child as being "trouble".

For instance, let's take a look at the 6-yr-old that I babysat this past year.  First of all, she's on my mind (and she's the reason I wrote this post) because her dad told me that she and her sister are dying to write me letters at my new NYC address.  Pretty sweet, right?  Anyway, I am willing to admit that she's no angel.  This girl can give attitude better than anyone I know.  She can be bossy and manipulative with her friends and her little sister, and there were many afternoons when I got frustrated with her.  But those tough days don't negate the fact that she has a lot of positive attributes.  She can be very compassionate and sweet to other people.  She is wonderfully bubbly and energetic.  She is an amazing writing and illustrator for her age.  She is fiercely proud of her family.  And one day after school, she wrote this thoughtful, sweet message on a chalkboard in my classroom:

It reads, "Dear Andrea, you make smiles grow", and
it's complete with a picture of smiling flowers blooming in the sun.

I know I'm getting preachy and touchy-feely (you can practically hear a guitar strumming "Kumbaya"), so I'll stop.  My point is, everyone has an inner light.  And everyone deserves a chance to let that light shine.

Yeah I'm freeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Free faaaaallling!

I did it--I finished my first (condensed) semester as a Columbia graduate student!  HELL YEAH!  I get two weeks off, and then I start my fall semester.  But before I totally rid myself of any memory of these last 6 weeks, I thought I would share something...

So one of the courses I took this summer was called "Risk and Resiliency".  Basically, it was a course about Special Education.  It was a great class--very practical, and I learned a lot.  One of the few assignments of the course was to observe two different children (one who was a typically developing child and one who was an atypically developing child) and write a 15-20 page paper describing what I observed and what it meant in the larger theme of child development and classroom accommodations.

I should tell you that we've had all 6 weeks to work on this paper.  You want to know when I started writing my paper?  The night before it was due.  I'm telling you, I am the worst procrastinator--although, now that I think about it, maybe I'm actually the best procrastinator, cause I'm so good at managing to get an assignment done at the last minute.  Anyway, I got the paper done (20 pages in less than 10 hours.  WHAT UP.) and I turned it in on Monday.  On Wednesday, we got our papers back.  And that's where several things happened that caught my attention:

• when the professor went through her stack of papers to find mine, she had trouble finding it.  Eventually, she realized that it was accidentally caught in the paper clip of another person's paper. hmmm....you see where I'm going with this?
• when she finally gave me my paper, I realized that it didn't include the rubric (the piece of paper that showed all the different requirements of the assignment, along with what my final grade for the assignment was).  I went up to the professor and asked her about it.  She looked through all of her papers several times, but couldn't find my rubric.  So she told me that I got an A, and that when she found the rubric she would mail it to me.  Are you there yet?  Have you caught on?
• later on, after I had left class with a friend of mine, she and I were looking at her paper and I noticed that her paper was covered in marks from the professor--checks next to ideas the professor agreed with, punctuation corrections, etc.  My paper?  No marks.  Anywhere.  ...aaaaand now you're with me.  

You guys?  I don't think she read my paper.  Swear to god, I think she overlooked it, but when she realized the mistake she had made, she didn't want to have to go back and do the work.  I mean, she even told me that she was leaving for vacation on Monday.  She doesn't want to have to read a 20-page paper when she's got her bags packed and one foot out the door.

And here's where I differ from everyone else that I told this story to--I don't CARE that she didn't read it.  I really don't.  But everyone I've talked to has been like, "Aren't you so mad?  Are you going to say something?  You got ripped off!"  You guys, I already know that I wrote a good paper.  I believe it was worth an A.  So what if she didn't actually read it?  I mean, god, I started writing it with less than 24 hours before the deadline.  But then I realized, I think that's the source of our differing opinions.  Writing papers like this one isn't hard for me.  Plenty of other things are--drawing, singing, playing sports, anything having to do with science--but writing papers isn't one of them.  So, no, I'm not pissed that she didn't read the paper.  And you know what that made me realize?  I am freaking MADE for graduate school.  I was so scared of the Ivy-covered walls and the celebrity professors that I forgot to stop for a second and remember that my one strength is that I can bullshit with the best of them.  You need a 10-page paper on social justice in the classroom.  Done.  15-page paper on parent involvement?  No problem.  20 pages about the cradle-to-prison pipeline?  Bitch, please.

Now, you ask me to compose a mathematical proof or sing "Happy Birthday" and I'm in trouble.  But until then, I'm going to take that A and move on.

It's like a party in my mouth!

Oh. My. God.

You guys, I just had the best sandwich EVER.  Grilled chicken, sauteed spinach, roasted red peppers, lettuce, tomato, and fresh mozzarella all tenderly wrapped in a wheat tortilla.  This masterpiece is called The Milano, and it's beautifully created at a small, nondescript sandwich shop on the Upper West Side called Busters.

See, this is the one thing I love about New York.  I don't really care so much about the clubs or the concerts or the shopping.  But I loooooooooove being in a city that is home to literally thousands of restaurants.  I swear to God, it makes me almost giddy thinking about it.  I don't know if I've told you this before, but I'm basically a fat kid at heart.  And it is only through sheer willpower (and more importantly, lack of funds) that keep me from ballooning in weight.  I don't know, though...if I keep finding places that have food like The Milano, I may soon be eligible for the next round of The Biggest Loser.
  

Always a bridesmaid...

In the last 20 minutes, I found out two people I know just got engaged.  Yay.  Add to this list the woman from my Multicultural Ed class who just got married last month, the guy from my Social Policy class that is getting married this week, and the irresponsible hyperactive kid that used to do his homework in my parents living room in middle school (who, to be fair, grew up to be a very respectful guy, and who has spent the last two years in Afghanistan and Iraq serving with the Marines).

Apparently, for some, love is in the air.

I know what you're going to say, that you can hear the whine in my voice and that I should get over myself.  You're right.  But it just kind of feels like when you go window shopping, and you're staring at all the wonderful clothes wishing you could buy them and then you have to watch others around you step up to the cash register with their credit card in one hand and the dress you were dying to have in the other, and you get that sort of deflated feeling.

Look, I have plenty of friends who are still single.  And as far as I know, they're happy to be single.  That's great for them.  But what I want now more than anything is to get married to my boyfriend, and it sucks that I can't because he's living in freaking Africa for another nine months.  I'm tired of doing long distance, I'm tired of having a relationship over the phone, I'm tired of flying halfway around the world to go spend time with my boyfriend.  We've been doing long distance off and on for the last 6 years, and I'm over it.  I just want to be with him.

I know I'm lucky to be in a relationship with a person I love so much.  I know that.  I just hope that all the newly engaged/married people out there also realize how lucky they are.  I will freely admit: I'm totally envious.

Just to make you smile

Ok, so I'm posting this story because when I told it to a certain someone, she immediately burst out laughing, and I was so happy to be able to brighten up her crappy day that it made up for any embarrassment I felt during the retelling.  You know who you are--and I hope you enjoy this encore presentation of my high-school humiliation...

So when I was in high school, I ran cross-country to fulfill my after-school sports requirement.  I know, I know, it's totally lame, but I was good at it because of all the swimming I did.  Look, we've already established that I was SO not a popular kid in high school, you don't have to rub it in, ok?

Anyway, one day I was finishing up a run after school, and I was cooling down by walking along the edge of a soccer field.  Well, the goalie on the team was practicing, which meant that another soccer player was slamming soccer balls as hard as he could towards the goal, so the goalie could practice saving the balls.  Can you see where I'm going with this?  Imagine if life was a bad sitcom.  What would happen next?  Yep, you got it.  I'm walking past the goal at the precise moment when the soccer player gives the ball a vicious kick, the ball goes wide and smacks me on the side of my face.  I think I actually went airborne from the impact of the hit.


I'll just wait for you to finish laughing...

Done yet?  No?


How bout now?  Yes?  Good.

Anyway, so I immediately burst into tears.  Honestly, it was more out of shock than anything else.  God, it was mortifying.  There I am, a lowly underclassman, barely 5 feet tall, looking like I belonged in middle school, crying like a baby because I got hit in the face by a soccer ball.  So then the assistant coach comes over and patronizingly says, "Hey, sweetheart, you ok?"  Ugh.  To top it all off, I had to do the walk of shame past the entire soccer team (who of course saw and heard everything) so that I can get all my stuff from the gym.  While I'm hurrying past the (super-cute upperclassmen) soccer players, one of the guys calls out, "Hey, you going to be ok, sweetheart?"  AGAIN with the sweetheart?  Seriously?!  Well by this point, I'm so over the whole thing, and I actually turn to him and say, "Screw you!"  I KNOW!  Who would've thought that little ole' me could actually give attitude?  I mean, it was a pretty tame retort, but it was something!  So with that momentary burst of strength, I managed to escape somewhat respectfully to the gym.

Oh, who am I kidding?  It was mortifying.  I blush in humiliation just thinking about it.  But hey, I now have two, count 'em TWO, tattoos, so that's gotta count for something, right?  I earn back some of my badassness points, right?  RIGHT?!