The Latest Transition

It's been hard to find a place in my new domicile in which I feel comfortable writing. Today I cleaned and moved some furniture, and I feel more at home now. But writing requires inward inspection. To turn my eyes inward requires an effort when my outer world is so stimulating. There's a whole kitchen to use, and food to be made out of necessity, not just luxury. There are so many living room chairs to sit in and find the comfortable spot. There are so many modes and tones of lighting to try in each room. It takes time and dedication to know and love a place. As I move into this one, I'm slowly settling in. It'll probably take 11 more months before I feel at home.

I hasten to add that I feel comfortable here on the whole, and am glad to be here. But it's different living with three other people in the same house than having an apartment, as thin as the walls were, as intruded-upon as I was. In this house, it is possible to...

• run out of milk (I was always throwing away 1/3 of the smallest milk containers.)
• stay up talking without having to turn off floor alarms (In a dormitory for high schoolers, you need floor alarms.)
• light candles (Again, it was a dormitory, and an old one, that couldn't be subjected to fire code.)
• wake up at 6 am, and see humans moving (High schoolers don't wake up that early.)
• come home, and find a party is already going on (At the dorm, if there was a party where I lived, it meant someone had broken into my apartment.)
• experience a breeze (In the dorm, I had all West-facing windows, and none too breezy.)
• find no room in the freezer (I generally kept ice trays with water evaporating in them.)
• walk to the front door without passing through your job (And that is beautiful, my friends.)

Self Love: Let This Be My Death Knell

[written in March 2014]

Sometimes I re-read my blog posts (way oftener than you'd think) to re-acquaint myself with myself, because I forget who I am so easily. Sometimes I address my wider readership (i.e. hey, Mom...), but more often I am writing to an imaginary person who has never met me, but wants to get to know me: someone who is doing research.

Said imaginary person is delving into the depths of these writings, looking for nuances and stuff, to get to know me. And it occurs to me today that that person is me. I am the one for whom I write, not for a long-distant, blog-reading, unknown-to-me, in-reality-creepy lover.

A worse fact of my narcissism is that I was at dinner a few nights ago, with five students laughing together as someone read their horoscopes in Chinese. In the interest of conversation, I asked them to read mine and translate it. "The lion looks like he loves everyone. But the lion loves himself."

In my heart, "Lord? You wouldn't speak through a horoscope, would you?" But it's true: I love myself, no matter what I say. Even writing this is vanity. I am in love and hate with myself. Jesus said that we have to find a way of loving others as much as we love ourselves. He knows that I love myself, that my own comfort and care is at the top of my priority list unless repeatedly otherwise stated.

Just Your Typical Fairy Tale...

I came across this thought in a student's research paper on Marilyn Monroe:

It started out as a typical fairy tale story of one young girl dropping out of high school to be with an older man with hopes that they would live happily ever after. That was not the case.

I plan to submit the idea to Disney. If that fails, Dreamworks. If that fails, I'll go straight to Michael Bay, and maybe he can combine it with some robots and other forms of banal failure.

Taking Myself in Hand at a Time of Transition

Take this in-between, through-the-cracks moment, and be quiet:

You are a person made of dust.

If there is glory to be had, don’t reach for it.

If the office is quiet, and the internet is down, go ahead and breathe.

Work will come, or it won’t.

Remember tea in Lachelle and Brian’s kitchen last night?

Remember sleeping in that big bed for the last time?

Remember entering the dorm office, the air scented with something that harkened you back like laughter continuing from a distant room of friends you’ve just left?

Remember that it’s time to go, and that’s right.
Leave now.

You won’t be alone along this road.

But even if you are alone for a while, and your fears materialize: (they haven’t,  yet, but supposing) your car battery fails, and your phone is maddeningly right where you placed it last night and trustingly left the house this morning---supposing all your first and second plans don’t pan out, I mean:

just wait a moment longer.

Your job becomes simpler: breathe and remember.

Someone has jumper cables. You’re someone’s son, someone’s daughter.

The only real disconnection is separation from God. And, thank God! That’s 
something you can remedy even now.

But back to the car: just know that a thousand possibilities swirl around you in times like these.

Raise your head in wonder, reach up, and pluck one star.

You can keep it.

Best of the QuoteDoc (3-Year Edition!)

Insights

“American food isn’t something you need to explain: just put cheese on top, and then eat it… with your hands.” -Vy (2014)

“There’s one thing I need to point out: I said your voice is ‘lovely.’ Did I say it was good?” -Gao (2013)

“Facebook...yeah, I give it 2 months tops before it’s completely dead.” -D’Angelo (2012)

“This looks like a condom package. But it’s actually a love movie.” -Jeffrey (2012)

[In a sing-songy voice] “An apple a day, don’t need to see a doctor!” -Vy (2013)

“Sounds Spanish for ‘I’m pissed.’” -Ben B. (2012)

“The difference between democracy and Communism is that in democracy, you have a cow, and the government takes a percent of milk. In Communism, you have a cow, and the government takes it, and puts you in jail.” -Ivan (2014)

Carolyn: Is there anything you don’t get tired of hearing, Chad?

Chadwick: Yes. “See ya later.” (2012)

“[Chad and I] don’t talk; we just parent.” -Monica (2011)

Carolyn: How unethical is it to use a toaster I confiscated?

Ben B.: It’s called "recycling." (2011)

Exclamations

“F*** my English!” -Song (2012)

Song: Carolyn, Ben died.

Carolyn: What!?

Song: Ben died... B-A-N-D-A-I-D!  (2012)

“You can ask me, I’m a narrative speaker.” -Andy X. (2012)

Vy: Frank, you are dressed like half Ben, half Luis!

Gao: That’s a mixture of disasters. (2014)

“Aww, you would look cute if you had cancer”- Yokabed to Vy, who was wearing a nylon stocking on her head. (2014)

“Hey, don’t be so gaycist” -Vy (2013)

“You have a Moomoo and a Nono. And now a Queenie? Someone has to tell them that these aren’t names. I won’t do it: I won’t say ‘would Queenie please report to the office?’” -Rachel D. (2012)

Could You Repeat the Question?

Adviser: How do you feel, Steven?

Steven: I feel myself. (2012)

Adviser: Frank, in New York, did anyone steal anything from you?

Frank: My father. (2013)

Adviser: Johnny, who are you living with now?

Johnny: My backpack. (2013)

Written:

Andy’s “sickness” was that he “couldn’t move” because his skin hurt when it was touched.  This happened because he took a shower last night, and the window was open.  It “takes a long time” to dry off, and the wind blew on him the whole time.  Ben said that he needed to take care of himself and close the window, but he insisted that he couldn’t do that because it was a was a public area and people would say he was a bad person. -Incident report by Ben H. (2013)

The joy of a misunderstood idiom:

Carolyn: Lachelle, remember that student that tried to hit on us?

Vy: Oh I do that all the time to you guys. (2014)

To lie together vs. to lie together:

(Carolyn to Ben H.) “That’s what our job is, to lie together.” (2014)

Worst-case scenario:

“The first thing we do if there’s a meningitis outbreak is hire a documentary film crew.” -Chad (2011)

Our Faces When...

For three years, Lachelle and I have worked as part of a team at the residence hall. We often wear similar colors, finish each others' sentences, pray together, stay up late at a kitchen table while she does graduate work and I grade papers, or we sit there with tea and talk everything over. 

But what do our interactions with the students look like? Behold, Our Faces When...

... a student sets off the alarm at 1 a.m. for no reason.

... a student refuses to lift the trash bag off the floor, and ends up getting a line of trash juice from the bathroom to the dumpster.

... a student doesn't understand why he is grounded after breaking curfew.

[Photo credit: Vy Ho]

Robin Rescue

I've told you before about the mother robin in her nest that's visible from the dorm office, in a small, gratuitous vista where the windows line up just so. This mother robin may be a different one from that of prior posts, I'm not sure, for she seems to remain quite aloof, never drawing near when some human inhabits the porch. Her babies just hatched three days ago, but had made not a stir upon their arrival, and so I had assumed they were still eggs.

Around 7:30 yesterday morning, I was performing whatever office duties are necessary in those three hours before another soul is awake on a weekend, when a giant, malevolent crow swooped under the gable, batted its wings for a moment in front of the nest, and flew off once more, carrying a hatchling in its beak. In the process, the entire nest was knocked to the ground, leaving four newly-hatched robin babies barely moving about on the cement porch.

A pitiful sight it was: one little brother with tiny fuzzy feathers inched himself around on the porch, subject to the biting morning wind. A smaller one fell out of the sideways nest, and rolled a bit, but could not lift his own head. Neither were old or strong enough, it seemed, even to chirp.

I am ashamed to say my reaction was merely to watch with heartache. I thought surely there was nothing I could do. I had the notion that if I interfered, the mother would not touch her babies again, or worse, I might be subjecting myself to some kind of bird disease. Gloves occurred to me, but only in passing.

Grace, an ambitious, excited tenth-grader who hopes to be a crime scene investigator, had just woken up, and was now keeping vigil with me. Her first remarks, I think, had to do with perhaps intervening, but I gave her my thoughts on the subject, which made her feel that it was impossible to save them. Dissuaded, she began to expound without abstraction on the Darwinian example before us, even asking if she might be permitted to dissect one of the unfortunates. I told her it would be indecent to discuss the matter until they were certainly dead.

The mother robin had returned to find her hard-built nest fallen, one baby taken, another (a large, but entirely featherless one) sprawled out in death, and three barely moving but to shiver. She squawked in anger from the deserted perch. Another robin hailed her, and they surveyed the wreckage. It was tragic; how can I tell you? I wanted to know how an animal comes back after such a devastation; could I learn from her example? She moved from floor to perch to ground to banister, chirping about her losses to the wide sky and the robin world. The crows were not listening. She could not rescue her babes.

Finally, Grace and I surveyed the disaster up close instead of through a window. It looked so easy to push the creatures back into their nest, and put the nest back. Grace was already arrayed in gloves, and fearless, ready for the impending and promised dissection. Without needing the ladder, she had all the living back in place before I had even arrived. We went away, hoping the mother would not reject her young despite our meddling.

But Robin did no such thing. She seemed overjoyed to have her life re-assembled for her. A day later, I see three little craning necks supporting three tiny and vigorous beaks in their rescued nest. The mother flies in and out, in and out to give them each their fill. She needed help. Grace had the courage to give it.

What became of the dead baby bird? I wish I could skip this part: Grace dissected it on a foam plate on the table.