What matters in life?
Pretty deep question to begin a post on, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately. How do people determine what takes priority in their life? For most people, making money tops the list. Your job is the one way that you can fuel all the other needs that exist- food, clothing, shelter, maintaining relationships. My roommate came back from her break today, exasperated about the importance that jobs have over nearly all other aspects of life.
"It controls everything!" she exclaimed, eyes wide and arms raised. "People leave their families because of their jobs! People live with people or don't live with people because of their jobs... people move hundreds of miles away, they change their lives for their jobs. It's so messed up!"
There's a small bit of her that is being overdramatic- of course people give things up for their jobs. After all, we need them to acquire our other needs. But it made me think about how much of our identities our jobs can become. When does that part of your identity override the other important things in your life?
Even beyond the broader things that people prioritize- jobs, family, friends, relationships, pets- within each of those are more things to rank in order of importance. Looks or personality? Duty or desire? Head or heart? How do we choose when presented with two options, equally important but in different ways? As we get older, these choices get harder and we're forced to make more compromises because of the increasingly complex web of obligations that tangles up our priorities.
Somewhere along the line, we are confronted with people or things that have nothing to trump them. Our dealbreakers. For some, it's staying at work past 6 on a Friday. For others, it's smoking cigarettes. We choose and define our breaking point, a line we draw in the sand and mark with a sign- Do not cross.
One of the worst parts about being young is the ignorance of what our boundaries are. Very few of us have real dealbreakers, and if we do we hesitate to admit them because we are still unsure. I think we get to our breaking point, to our limit, to the place where we need to yell "STOP! This is enough!" and we can't say no. We're conditioned to not quit, to keep trying, to work it out. If we were older, wiser, we'd recognize this and find an out.
But maybe this is the beauty (or really, the shitty part) of being young. That you figure out your boundaries and breaking point by testing them and surpassing them. That you find your dream job by trying the million and one jobs you absolutely hate. Or, that you find your dream job by hating it passionately at first and then pulling yourself up, inch by inch, until you understand what it's all about.
Maybe I'm just rambling in an effort to find a way to avoid the Sunday night anxiety and the Thanksgiving break horror so many TFA teachers have been warning me about. But it's an interesting thing to consider.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Surprise!!!
Where I REALLY went for Thanksgiving was not home, like my boyfriend thought I was, but to Tampa, where his family was visiting his mom's parents. It was pretty cool to successfully orchestrate a surprise, especially since I've known since the beginning of September and somehow managed to keep the secret to myself.
It's funny to spend time with other people's families. It makes you think about what's normal, if there is such a thing in families. My family is nuts, as you may be able to see from previous posts (and if you are lucky enough to know them). Needless to say, I think I felt pretty at home down there- about as comfortable as I could be if I wasn't with my own family. One thing I've noticed, getting to know different people and their mothers and fathers and siblings and cousins, is that very few people actually talk to them. I mean REALLY talk to them. That was definitely not it down there. It made it much easier to be away from my family because I could laugh at inappropriate jokes about penises and farting without pretending I'm coughing.
Not to mention the food was WONDERFUL.
Now I'm back in Charlotte, first of my roommates in the apartment, trying to get some planning and stuff done for the final three weeks before Christmas. I'm feeling so blah about getting back to teaching, especially after such an awesome break. It's always such a roller coaster, getting so excited about seeing someone you love and then having to go back and do something that you still haven't settled into. Hopefully I won't get too bummed out (especially on top of the typical Sunday night anxiety).
It's funny to spend time with other people's families. It makes you think about what's normal, if there is such a thing in families. My family is nuts, as you may be able to see from previous posts (and if you are lucky enough to know them). Needless to say, I think I felt pretty at home down there- about as comfortable as I could be if I wasn't with my own family. One thing I've noticed, getting to know different people and their mothers and fathers and siblings and cousins, is that very few people actually talk to them. I mean REALLY talk to them. That was definitely not it down there. It made it much easier to be away from my family because I could laugh at inappropriate jokes about penises and farting without pretending I'm coughing.
Not to mention the food was WONDERFUL.
Now I'm back in Charlotte, first of my roommates in the apartment, trying to get some planning and stuff done for the final three weeks before Christmas. I'm feeling so blah about getting back to teaching, especially after such an awesome break. It's always such a roller coaster, getting so excited about seeing someone you love and then having to go back and do something that you still haven't settled into. Hopefully I won't get too bummed out (especially on top of the typical Sunday night anxiety).
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
I am thankful for...
Two posts in one day... what you get when I get to the airport so early.
Anyway, I figured that a tribute to all the things I'm thankful for is something I have to do, some kind of generic rite of passage that each blog should contain. Plus I was a little inspired by my Starbucks cup (even more generic, ick). I had my kids start with the prompt above, so I guess I'll use that.
I am thankful for...
Family: the people I can count on to say the only things more ridiculous than the things my kids say. The people that inspire everything I do, for better or worse. My family is hilarious and I'm so lucky to have them. It's weird to be doing this now, without them around me, because usually this conversation is reserved for Thanksgiving dinner, fueled by glasses of wine and food comas. At this time there's oil all over the kitchen floor from my dad's careless oiling of the paper bag ritual for the turkey (top secret family recipe). There's leftover bagels in the trash and hot cocoa spills on the porch, splotches that eerily resemble blood splatters from a murder scene. It's not a murder scene, just the transition to the Pie and Glove race early in the morning, when my sister and I are still sleeping off our Thanksgiving Eve hangovers. The circular discussion usually centers on things we are jokingly thankful for- "Dad, for holding my hair back," "late night Doritos," "Not getting arrested"- because what we're really most thankful for doesn't need to be said. One year my grandmother really killed the buzz by exclaiming after her thankful speech that she prayed every day that we would stop drinking. Everyone but my 15 year old autistic cousin had a drink in their hand. Oh well.
Friends: another cliche one, one that I can't really talk about because my friends and I are so weird that anyone reading about us would just be confused. But I couldn't be more thankful for finding people that I can be a weirdo with, that appreciate my horrible jokes and my strange tendencies, and that can answer back with horrible jokes and strange tendencies of their own.
Lovers: that's you, Jack. So actually I guess it's just "Lover." Your first name mention in my blog... you should feel special. That's all ya get though.
My School and Support People: I would have been face first in the bush outside of creepy-downstairs-neighbor-Randy's balcony if it wasn't for all the staff at my school and in TFA who listen to me cry like a baby and complain and freak out and have meltdowns. Thanks for choosing (or not choosing, some of the people I vent to are only there because I corner them... hah) to calm me down and help me out.
My Kids: I don't know when it happened, but now my kids are really MY kids. As much as they drive me crazy and I want to run out of the room on them, they have really brought a lot of good things into my life. Stress, anxiety... oh wait, right. GOOD things. I spend 5 hours straight with them, and they make me laugh almost as much as my friends and family can. They try to impress me, they do things behind my back, they put things in their mouth that they aren't supposed to, but in the end they teach me something new every single day whether it's about myself or about people in general. And they're learning. Almost all of them are meeting their goals for this time of the year, and I'm pretty grateful for that (my sanity is grateful for that, too).
For their Thanksgiving prompts, most of my kids talked about their moms and dads, their cousins or pets. Some of them talked about God (this is the South, after all). One kid, though, talked about something else.
He said, "I am thankful for learning how to read. My teacher taught me how to read. It was fun. Now I'm a good reader. A real good reader."
Unfortunately, I still haven't taught him how to write so it looked more like this: "I am thankful for lrng how to red. My TCR tote me how to red. IT wuZ FUN. NoW I'm a GuD ReDR. RiL Gud RedR."
I didn't let him take it home... kept it for myself, for those days I do feel like throwing myself out of my classroom window. Maybe he's the biggest suck up in the class, the one always pulling on my arm to tell me he's being a good helper, the one asking my TA to tell me that he was "very focused," the one who loudly proclaims, "Please share the crayons with me and be a good friend," just to try and please me. It's still something I'm thankful for.
Holiday Crazies
In typical me fashion, I have arrived at the airport a full two and half hours before my flight. When I say arrive, I mean I am sitting at my gate, settled and ready for boarding, meaning that I parked more than three hours before departure. I'm going to pretend that I really thought it would take that long, but the truth is I wanted to sit in the airport and people watch. Weird, I know.
During this time, I also realized that I broke the rule mentioned in my last post, that Thanksgiving must be given its own moment of glory before Christmas can settle into its overbearing reign over December (and January, for me).
I only had two days of school this week, but the kids were crazy enough for one full week. They're so intuitive and I think they knew in their little brains that they needed to squeeze in all their antics in those two days. At first, I was annoyed. Why is it that the holidays cause them to go so nuts? I never appreciated having Halloween on a weekend more after realizing how much time children ACTUALLY need to recover from the sugar rush that comes along with it. The problem is that by the time they get out of that candy trance, along come Thanksgiving and Christmas, which set them off in a way that makes Halloween look like Flag Day.
The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that this holiday frenzy is something that affects kids and adults in very similar ways (I use adult in a very loose way here, because I'm actually including college students in that classification). I can complain about the way that kids go nuts, acting like they've been snorting Pixie Sticks on the bus, but I think I react in kind of the same way.
Let me explain. I love the holidays (clearly, from my last post). Very recently, Thanksgiving Eve and Thanksgiving have climbed up in the rank of important holidays, especially with the passing of my 21st birthday. I was finally able to get out to the glorious strip of bars in my small hometown, one street of tired libation stations littered with the kids from my high school that never left town. Thanksgiving Eve is the biggest night of the year, a drunken procession from bar to bar, searching for old faces that dominated my childhood and adolescence. My friends and I went crazy, reuniting and reconnecting, reliving our nights the next day in the only restaurant (a pizzeria) worth going to.
In college, the approach of Thanksgiving meant a sharpening of the dichotomy of social life and academic life. As dates for final exams and massive papers loomed closer, so did Christmas parties. My senior year, we had our first Christmas party the weekend before Thanksgiving, a party that began with us tamely drinking red wine, watching the Yule log, and admiring the newly chopped down tree our guy friends had just put up in their room. It ended with Michael Jackson videos and paper snowflakes poorly cut out from the empty beer cases.
The holiday season in college is characterized by pop-y remixes to Christmas favorites, usually with a new rap verse added in and half-naked girls in Santa hats dancing in videos. It means glittery tops and wrapping paper on walls and candy canes sent in care packages from overprotective mothers. My junior year it meant nearly puking every Sunday. That was the year when every alcoholic drink we made contained milk, a recipe for hangover more certain than tequila. Try ingesting gallons of eggnog, Bailey's, hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps for three weeks straight. It was not pretty.
But the bottom line is that we use holidays as an excuse for giddy behavior, whether we're young or we're old. It's not just the kids that go crazy. Just take a look at the frenzied shoppers holding 12 boxes of Christmas lights, at the increased traffic in liquor and package stores, at the stupid cards and little gifts sent just because you're "feeling the spirit." I forgot that the holiday fever affects us all equally, heightening our craziness beginning with Black Friday and lasting until we;ve caught up on sleep after New Years.
I guess I'll just have to embrace the fact that my kids are going to be off the wall for the next three weeks, and maybe that's okay. Maybe I just need to go off the wall with them.
During this time, I also realized that I broke the rule mentioned in my last post, that Thanksgiving must be given its own moment of glory before Christmas can settle into its overbearing reign over December (and January, for me).
I only had two days of school this week, but the kids were crazy enough for one full week. They're so intuitive and I think they knew in their little brains that they needed to squeeze in all their antics in those two days. At first, I was annoyed. Why is it that the holidays cause them to go so nuts? I never appreciated having Halloween on a weekend more after realizing how much time children ACTUALLY need to recover from the sugar rush that comes along with it. The problem is that by the time they get out of that candy trance, along come Thanksgiving and Christmas, which set them off in a way that makes Halloween look like Flag Day.
The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that this holiday frenzy is something that affects kids and adults in very similar ways (I use adult in a very loose way here, because I'm actually including college students in that classification). I can complain about the way that kids go nuts, acting like they've been snorting Pixie Sticks on the bus, but I think I react in kind of the same way.
Let me explain. I love the holidays (clearly, from my last post). Very recently, Thanksgiving Eve and Thanksgiving have climbed up in the rank of important holidays, especially with the passing of my 21st birthday. I was finally able to get out to the glorious strip of bars in my small hometown, one street of tired libation stations littered with the kids from my high school that never left town. Thanksgiving Eve is the biggest night of the year, a drunken procession from bar to bar, searching for old faces that dominated my childhood and adolescence. My friends and I went crazy, reuniting and reconnecting, reliving our nights the next day in the only restaurant (a pizzeria) worth going to.
In college, the approach of Thanksgiving meant a sharpening of the dichotomy of social life and academic life. As dates for final exams and massive papers loomed closer, so did Christmas parties. My senior year, we had our first Christmas party the weekend before Thanksgiving, a party that began with us tamely drinking red wine, watching the Yule log, and admiring the newly chopped down tree our guy friends had just put up in their room. It ended with Michael Jackson videos and paper snowflakes poorly cut out from the empty beer cases.
The holiday season in college is characterized by pop-y remixes to Christmas favorites, usually with a new rap verse added in and half-naked girls in Santa hats dancing in videos. It means glittery tops and wrapping paper on walls and candy canes sent in care packages from overprotective mothers. My junior year it meant nearly puking every Sunday. That was the year when every alcoholic drink we made contained milk, a recipe for hangover more certain than tequila. Try ingesting gallons of eggnog, Bailey's, hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps for three weeks straight. It was not pretty.
But the bottom line is that we use holidays as an excuse for giddy behavior, whether we're young or we're old. It's not just the kids that go crazy. Just take a look at the frenzied shoppers holding 12 boxes of Christmas lights, at the increased traffic in liquor and package stores, at the stupid cards and little gifts sent just because you're "feeling the spirit." I forgot that the holiday fever affects us all equally, heightening our craziness beginning with Black Friday and lasting until we;ve caught up on sleep after New Years.
I guess I'll just have to embrace the fact that my kids are going to be off the wall for the next three weeks, and maybe that's okay. Maybe I just need to go off the wall with them.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Christmas Countdown
For some reason, The Station for Soft Rock 102.9 has decided that it is the appropriate time of year to play Christmas music, at least from 5:30-6:00 am and 6:30-7:00 pm (the times I'm going to and from work). I thought there was some kind of commercial rule that Christmas had to wait its turn until after Thanksgiving. Sure, Christmas decorations are put out right on November 1st, as the Halloween decorations go to rot in back warehouses and all the stray pieces of candy corn are collected from the gutters and repackaged for the next year (sometimes they're given out to elementary school teachers in an effort to keep them from going crazy throughout the day... or maybe that's just at my school?). BUT it seems like the Christmas hype- all the sentimental commericals and boy band remixes of "Let It Snow" and employees wearing red and green- waits until after the quiet, turkey/pie/beer-induced coma has passed.
Let me be clear. I have absolutely no objection to this early Christmas madness. I love Christmas. I would play Christmas music all year round if I could. I would be lying if I told you I skipped past Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You" when it comes on my iPod shuffle in April. But part of what makes it so special is that it only happens for that one part of the year. For me, that one part just happens to last approximately three months.
My love for Christmas began in my childhood. Our Christmases were further proof of the fact that my parents relished in the idea of tricking us. I think they got a little too much pleasure in our gullibility. Christmas home videos reveal timestamps of 12/28/89 and 12/23/91.
"Christmas came early that year?" my sister and I would ask when we dug up the ancient VHS tapes crammed behind the endless monotony of cross country races on film. They were known for telling us that Santa was waiting to visit our house last, or that my mom had called him up and told him we'd be out of town. We joke about it now, how the birth of Christ was the same for everyone except us.
On Christmas morning, we would have to wait at the top of our stairs, peeking shamelessly into the living room where our presents were arranged in five piles, one for each family member. We'd wake up at 6 am, me still sleepy-eyed with my skullet* and my brother and sister twirling and tumbling, drunk with the excitement that can only come from the combination of Christmas morning and unmedicated ADHD. (Note: skullet is a term coined by one of my college teammates after seeing a baby picture of me. I didn't have hair until I was three, and when it finally started to grow in, it sprung from the center of the back of my head, curling down on my neck in tendrils while the top of my head remained only slightly grazed with blonde peach fuzz. Party in the back, skull in the front-> skullet). The rule was that until my parents had a cup of coffee (or 3 or 4), we had to wait at the top of the stairs, hopelessly close to the presents that were still just out of reach.
They'd take their time getting the video camera set up, a mammoth piece of equipment only seen in the '80s. I think it weighed about fifteen pounds, if I had to make a guess. Only then were we allowed to waddle down the stairs, clapping our pudgy hands and squeezing each other's arms in unbridled excitement.
Jon was sadly the recipient of my sister's and my hand-me-downs, despite being the prize male child of the family (hah). One video shows Kristin coming down the stairs, decked out in brand-new yellow foot-y pajamas, followed by the child-sumo-wrestler version of me, The Incredible Skullet (did I mention I was overweight and ate everything in sight before the age of five?) in decidingly older blue foot-y pajamas. Finally, came Jonny, no exception to the pajama uniform of Christmas, his pink and fraying version threadbare in the foot portion, with a piece of the arm gnawed off (probably from an incident where breakfast came too late and I couldn't contain myself). His blue eyes sparkled and little curls bounced, oblivious to the fact that he wore foot-y pajamas that had already endured the bodies of a hyperactive tomboy and an overeating child genius (yes, I came o ut of the womb reading "Are You My Mother?").
It was the same smile he wore when he got a "new" bike for his fifth birthday, which was really the Barbie bike I had helped Kristin unwrap for her fifth birthday, one we shared until a few days before when my dad spray-painted it a manly black and orange for Jon. See? Tricked!
If we ever noticed this trickery, or cared about it, it never showed. We were always intoxicated by that Christmas time happiness, characterized by new sparkly tights (even for Jon, hand-me-down ones that kept him warm under his courdoroys), evergreen garland that hung everywhere in our house, and Harry Connick, Jr. on repeat.
My parents egged on this Christmas mood and continued to do so as we got older. My dad is the only male in his school that participates in The Great Cookie exchange, baking 12 dozen sugar cookie angels to bring to the middle-aged teachers at his school. One year, when Kristin and I were in college, he had this brilliant idea of doing the Fiorillo family shopping exchange. Each of us got $100 from him and had to spend $25 on each family member. We had two hours in our tiny mall to gather all of our presents the day before Christmas Eve. I worked methodically, a detailed list in my pocket of what I would buy each person, the prices and tax calculated precisely next to each item, as well as a plan of when I would go buy a cinnamon sugar soft pretzal with the $2.69 that would be leftover. I ran into my sister mid-spree, holding a three-foot long, three inch diameter cylinder in her coat.
"What the hell is that?" I asked.
"A sausage," she said breathlessly. "How am I gonna hide this from Dad?"
Just then, my cell phone rang. It was Jon. "What do you need?"
"What does fleece mean? And how much do I have left to spend if I already spent $17 on Mom?"
The funniest part was that my mother had gotten Kristin a new cell phone, but had to use it as her own until they could switch the numbers over after the holiday. It was a new kind of flip phone that was way over her head to use, and whenever I tried to call her to ask where she was, she would answer flustered...
"Hello? Hello?! What the... is this thing even on..." Click. So much for only spending two hours in the mall.
When we exchanged presents, we saw that my dad had gotten us all mugs with a family picture on it. He smiled, completely satisfied with himself. "This is what started the whole idea!" He exclaimed. "Wasn't that great?"
"NO!" We shouted in unison. "Why didn't you just buy them for us while we stayed at home and watched Toy Story 2?" He had seen the sausage Kristin had tried to hide from him, and my Mom had nearly broken Kristin's new cell phone when she tried to answer it discreetly with my sister right next to her.
One of the Christmas videos, the one made about three days after Christmas, starred only my sister and me. I was too young to fully grasp our family obsession of Christmas, still bald and too fat to bend over without looking like a plumber, but Kristin was already drinking the punch. My dad was video-taping us coming in from the car, probably from Buffalo where my mom's family lives.
"Sai-wah! SAI-WAH!!! IT'S CHWISSMAIS! SAI-NTA CAME!! OH MY GOSH SAI-NTA!!" (please note the glorious combination of upstate New York accent and a tongue thrust speech impediment that my sister had... priceless)
Kristin opened her first present upon entering. I was more skeptical, boasting my signature two-year-old look of "I'm too busy for this"- my few strands of hair in the back matted beyond recognition and Mardi Gras beads that I demanded from my mother adorning my neck.
"Look Kristin," my mom explained, her inch-thick '80's glassed taking up half of her face. "A sweatsuit. Just what you wanted!" With those four words, came a frenzy of screaming that took over our house for the next half hours. Those words implanted an idea in Kristin's head, one that still exists today. It is the idea that every single thing she saw was just what she wanted. She could be happy with a pet rock, a house with no door, living at home in the basement... anything. But on that day, it was exclusively a Christmas idea.
"Just what I wanted!!" to a pair of dress-up heels and purple sparkly boa.
"Just what I wanted!!" to a pair of jean overalls promptly thrown to the side at the sight of another present.
"Just what YOU wanted, Sai-wa!" to a Christmas sweater embroidered with gingerbread men that I eyed, licking my lips.
"Just what I wanted!!" to my Dad's new kitchen spatula.
"Just what I wanted!!" ... "Kristin, that's a piece of wrapping paper."
That one video really sums up Christmas for our family. No matter what Christmas is during a particular year, whether perfect or going all wrong, it is just what we want. The year we were in Buffalo and a 6 foot snowstorm required ALL the family adults to "rescue" my uncle, abandoned on his snowmobile, by taking him to a karaoke bar with all 12 cousins under the leadership of Kristin. Christmas in July while we were camping with my Mom's college roommates and our van got hit by a deer. A Christmas Eve party at my Nana's condo in Florida, with no one under the age of 75 besides us (no alcoholic drink under the proof of 75 either). Christmas decorations still up in late March, the Harry Connick, Jr. CD left in the CD player, scratched but still working. It's still our crazy family, just what we want.
Let me be clear. I have absolutely no objection to this early Christmas madness. I love Christmas. I would play Christmas music all year round if I could. I would be lying if I told you I skipped past Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You" when it comes on my iPod shuffle in April. But part of what makes it so special is that it only happens for that one part of the year. For me, that one part just happens to last approximately three months.
My love for Christmas began in my childhood. Our Christmases were further proof of the fact that my parents relished in the idea of tricking us. I think they got a little too much pleasure in our gullibility. Christmas home videos reveal timestamps of 12/28/89 and 12/23/91.
"Christmas came early that year?" my sister and I would ask when we dug up the ancient VHS tapes crammed behind the endless monotony of cross country races on film. They were known for telling us that Santa was waiting to visit our house last, or that my mom had called him up and told him we'd be out of town. We joke about it now, how the birth of Christ was the same for everyone except us.
On Christmas morning, we would have to wait at the top of our stairs, peeking shamelessly into the living room where our presents were arranged in five piles, one for each family member. We'd wake up at 6 am, me still sleepy-eyed with my skullet* and my brother and sister twirling and tumbling, drunk with the excitement that can only come from the combination of Christmas morning and unmedicated ADHD. (Note: skullet is a term coined by one of my college teammates after seeing a baby picture of me. I didn't have hair until I was three, and when it finally started to grow in, it sprung from the center of the back of my head, curling down on my neck in tendrils while the top of my head remained only slightly grazed with blonde peach fuzz. Party in the back, skull in the front-> skullet). The rule was that until my parents had a cup of coffee (or 3 or 4), we had to wait at the top of the stairs, hopelessly close to the presents that were still just out of reach.
They'd take their time getting the video camera set up, a mammoth piece of equipment only seen in the '80s. I think it weighed about fifteen pounds, if I had to make a guess. Only then were we allowed to waddle down the stairs, clapping our pudgy hands and squeezing each other's arms in unbridled excitement.
Jon was sadly the recipient of my sister's and my hand-me-downs, despite being the prize male child of the family (hah). One video shows Kristin coming down the stairs, decked out in brand-new yellow foot-y pajamas, followed by the child-sumo-wrestler version of me, The Incredible Skullet (did I mention I was overweight and ate everything in sight before the age of five?) in decidingly older blue foot-y pajamas. Finally, came Jonny, no exception to the pajama uniform of Christmas, his pink and fraying version threadbare in the foot portion, with a piece of the arm gnawed off (probably from an incident where breakfast came too late and I couldn't contain myself). His blue eyes sparkled and little curls bounced, oblivious to the fact that he wore foot-y pajamas that had already endured the bodies of a hyperactive tomboy and an overeating child genius (yes, I came o ut of the womb reading "Are You My Mother?").
It was the same smile he wore when he got a "new" bike for his fifth birthday, which was really the Barbie bike I had helped Kristin unwrap for her fifth birthday, one we shared until a few days before when my dad spray-painted it a manly black and orange for Jon. See? Tricked!
If we ever noticed this trickery, or cared about it, it never showed. We were always intoxicated by that Christmas time happiness, characterized by new sparkly tights (even for Jon, hand-me-down ones that kept him warm under his courdoroys), evergreen garland that hung everywhere in our house, and Harry Connick, Jr. on repeat.
My parents egged on this Christmas mood and continued to do so as we got older. My dad is the only male in his school that participates in The Great Cookie exchange, baking 12 dozen sugar cookie angels to bring to the middle-aged teachers at his school. One year, when Kristin and I were in college, he had this brilliant idea of doing the Fiorillo family shopping exchange. Each of us got $100 from him and had to spend $25 on each family member. We had two hours in our tiny mall to gather all of our presents the day before Christmas Eve. I worked methodically, a detailed list in my pocket of what I would buy each person, the prices and tax calculated precisely next to each item, as well as a plan of when I would go buy a cinnamon sugar soft pretzal with the $2.69 that would be leftover. I ran into my sister mid-spree, holding a three-foot long, three inch diameter cylinder in her coat.
"What the hell is that?" I asked.
"A sausage," she said breathlessly. "How am I gonna hide this from Dad?"
Just then, my cell phone rang. It was Jon. "What do you need?"
"What does fleece mean? And how much do I have left to spend if I already spent $17 on Mom?"
The funniest part was that my mother had gotten Kristin a new cell phone, but had to use it as her own until they could switch the numbers over after the holiday. It was a new kind of flip phone that was way over her head to use, and whenever I tried to call her to ask where she was, she would answer flustered...
"Hello? Hello?! What the... is this thing even on..." Click. So much for only spending two hours in the mall.
When we exchanged presents, we saw that my dad had gotten us all mugs with a family picture on it. He smiled, completely satisfied with himself. "This is what started the whole idea!" He exclaimed. "Wasn't that great?"
"NO!" We shouted in unison. "Why didn't you just buy them for us while we stayed at home and watched Toy Story 2?" He had seen the sausage Kristin had tried to hide from him, and my Mom had nearly broken Kristin's new cell phone when she tried to answer it discreetly with my sister right next to her.
One of the Christmas videos, the one made about three days after Christmas, starred only my sister and me. I was too young to fully grasp our family obsession of Christmas, still bald and too fat to bend over without looking like a plumber, but Kristin was already drinking the punch. My dad was video-taping us coming in from the car, probably from Buffalo where my mom's family lives.
"Sai-wah! SAI-WAH!!! IT'S CHWISSMAIS! SAI-NTA CAME!! OH MY GOSH SAI-NTA!!" (please note the glorious combination of upstate New York accent and a tongue thrust speech impediment that my sister had... priceless)
Kristin opened her first present upon entering. I was more skeptical, boasting my signature two-year-old look of "I'm too busy for this"- my few strands of hair in the back matted beyond recognition and Mardi Gras beads that I demanded from my mother adorning my neck.
"Look Kristin," my mom explained, her inch-thick '80's glassed taking up half of her face. "A sweatsuit. Just what you wanted!" With those four words, came a frenzy of screaming that took over our house for the next half hours. Those words implanted an idea in Kristin's head, one that still exists today. It is the idea that every single thing she saw was just what she wanted. She could be happy with a pet rock, a house with no door, living at home in the basement... anything. But on that day, it was exclusively a Christmas idea.
"Just what I wanted!!" to a pair of dress-up heels and purple sparkly boa.
"Just what I wanted!!" to a pair of jean overalls promptly thrown to the side at the sight of another present.
"Just what YOU wanted, Sai-wa!" to a Christmas sweater embroidered with gingerbread men that I eyed, licking my lips.
"Just what I wanted!!" to my Dad's new kitchen spatula.
"Just what I wanted!!" ... "Kristin, that's a piece of wrapping paper."
That one video really sums up Christmas for our family. No matter what Christmas is during a particular year, whether perfect or going all wrong, it is just what we want. The year we were in Buffalo and a 6 foot snowstorm required ALL the family adults to "rescue" my uncle, abandoned on his snowmobile, by taking him to a karaoke bar with all 12 cousins under the leadership of Kristin. Christmas in July while we were camping with my Mom's college roommates and our van got hit by a deer. A Christmas Eve party at my Nana's condo in Florida, with no one under the age of 75 besides us (no alcoholic drink under the proof of 75 either). Christmas decorations still up in late March, the Harry Connick, Jr. CD left in the CD player, scratched but still working. It's still our crazy family, just what we want.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
There are so many of them.
I had a moment today that I can only equate to going camping. It was like waking up in the morning, right when the tent is starting to trap all the heat and get really uncomfortable, but when there's still dew on the sides that gets you all wet when you roll into it because your dad set it up on an incline. You open your eyes, and you think, "Man, this is uncomfortable." And then you see a spider. And then you see a moth. And then you see about 20 other bugs (so 22 in all, math whizzes). And then you think, "Oh... my... God. There are so many of them." And this feeling of horror fills you up and you potato-sack it out of the tent, legs still in sleeping bag.
That's how I felt today when all my kids were finally in the room for writing.
I mean, I have 13 six-year-old boys. THIRTEEN. Do you know how much burping, fake choking, and fart jokes that equals?
Hopefully I get over that feeling by tomorrow... yeeks*.
*obviously a made up word... it's been a long day.
That's how I felt today when all my kids were finally in the room for writing.
I mean, I have 13 six-year-old boys. THIRTEEN. Do you know how much burping, fake choking, and fart jokes that equals?
Hopefully I get over that feeling by tomorrow... yeeks*.
*obviously a made up word... it's been a long day.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Weekend Getaway
After spending the weekend in lovely Hartford, CT, I come back feeling... a little frazzled. I had a student transferred into my class 5 minutes before students came in Monday morning, so I got to have fun scrambling around (in addition to all of the scrambling around I normally do Monday mornings.
Even so, the weekend was glorious. It was so good to see all of my friends and hang out with my boyfriend. I got a little out of control on Saturday, but who doesn't? It's homecoming. Plus I rebounded for Saturday night, so no harm done.
I'm still a little torn about whether seeing people that mean a lot to me makes me feel better or not. Coming back was probably the worst it's ever been, sitting in the airport with that ache that comes after a really great Trinity weekend and trying to breathe life into my dying phone and computer. It was just long enough to snap into a feeling of carelessness, of no responsibility and happiness in stretch pants watching bad daytime TV. I don't get to feel that way often in Charlotte, not in the way I did when I was in college. Of course, I was reminded of things I hated at Trinity, at least by the end of my time there. Things like pretentious party "bouncers" rejecting unfavorable guy to girl ratios, drunk bitches (I'm sorry, there are no other nonvulgar word that can accurately describe those things) pushing past you to get a beer half filled with foam, and tiny college refrigerators that don't really keep any beverages cold enough. I still found myself wishing (at least a little bit) that I was back to being able to just lay in bed all day, lazy and soaking up the life where anything that was a real concern could be put off during the weekend.
On a lighter, more teaching-related note, I've been trying to re-test the reading level of some of my kids so that I can put them in new groups after Thanksgiving break. One of my girls started out this year right about on grade level, reading well but still pretty average. Today... she was reading at SECOND grade level (already!! It's November!!) and going strong. I still have more books for her to read to see exactly how high she can go. I'm so excited though. A little skeptical that it was me ("So, uh, what exactly do your parents do with you at home?") but excited nonetheless.
For now, it's back to more lesson planning and what not. I could go on in much more detail about the weekend... but I'll spare you.
Even so, the weekend was glorious. It was so good to see all of my friends and hang out with my boyfriend. I got a little out of control on Saturday, but who doesn't? It's homecoming. Plus I rebounded for Saturday night, so no harm done.
I'm still a little torn about whether seeing people that mean a lot to me makes me feel better or not. Coming back was probably the worst it's ever been, sitting in the airport with that ache that comes after a really great Trinity weekend and trying to breathe life into my dying phone and computer. It was just long enough to snap into a feeling of carelessness, of no responsibility and happiness in stretch pants watching bad daytime TV. I don't get to feel that way often in Charlotte, not in the way I did when I was in college. Of course, I was reminded of things I hated at Trinity, at least by the end of my time there. Things like pretentious party "bouncers" rejecting unfavorable guy to girl ratios, drunk bitches (I'm sorry, there are no other nonvulgar word that can accurately describe those things) pushing past you to get a beer half filled with foam, and tiny college refrigerators that don't really keep any beverages cold enough. I still found myself wishing (at least a little bit) that I was back to being able to just lay in bed all day, lazy and soaking up the life where anything that was a real concern could be put off during the weekend.
On a lighter, more teaching-related note, I've been trying to re-test the reading level of some of my kids so that I can put them in new groups after Thanksgiving break. One of my girls started out this year right about on grade level, reading well but still pretty average. Today... she was reading at SECOND grade level (already!! It's November!!) and going strong. I still have more books for her to read to see exactly how high she can go. I'm so excited though. A little skeptical that it was me ("So, uh, what exactly do your parents do with you at home?") but excited nonetheless.
For now, it's back to more lesson planning and what not. I could go on in much more detail about the weekend... but I'll spare you.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
A Whole Lot of Sara Blogging... BAM. In Your Face.
I've been a little absent in the blogging world... okay, maybe a lot absent. I've felt lost for words lately, and I'm not quite sure of the reason. Maybe it's a confidence thing because I have about 17 saved drafts that I feel aren't good enough or interesting enough to post... perhaps I should bust a few of those out if another dry spell occurs.
My life most recently has been consumed by the perfect storm of administrative nightmares. I'll give you a brief list so I don't get myself too worked up:
1) Report cards: IT SUCKS. It's hard. It's putting a number on your kids, especially in first grade when you have a scale of 3. THREE. Imagine rating guys or girls on a scale of 3. It wouldn't give you a good picture of whether someone is actually good looking or not. For some people, you don't need a good picture though, I guess. My boyfriend's friends sometimes use binary code to rate girls, giving them thumbs up ("Yeah, I would...") or thumbs down ("No, not even with a bag on her head."). I'm sure it's just them... he would never be that crude (not).
2) SQR=FML: I've officially found my least favorite education acronym so far. School Quality Review, basically the school equivalent to your overprotective mother in law coming to visit. As much as it was stressful and tons of work and tons of pressure to get everything presented all nicely, it felt good to be so organized and on top of things when it was all over.
3) Data: Don't get me wrong- I like data. I don't like testing and re-testing my kids 8 trillion times though. Not when I want to... hmm, what's the word? Oh right... teach.
Clearly a lot of complaining on my end. Believe me, you wouldn't have wanted to be one of the people on my speed dial these past few weeks. All of it's a part of education though, so I guess I'll have to get used to it.
On an exciting note, I'll be returning to my college campus for some Homecoming activities and I could not be more excited. Especially about seeing all my old friends and teammates... and of course the BF. He's a 1 (in binary code, duh). Or maybe I should say a 3- consistently meets expectations (FYI consistently is defined on the report card as 80% of the time or more). I'm not looking forward to physically being in New England in November, because it's quite lovely down here in North Carolina. BUT I feel like it's been Christmas Eve for 4 days straight. WOO. Can't wait!
And of course, I think some birthday festivity recap is necessary. That 10 of a boyfriend of mine finally tuned in to my love for greeting cards, sending me TWO. Two good ones, too. I love cards. My sister's boyfriend is still in the phase where he feels the need to suck up to me, so he sent some delicious (and pretty) cupcakes to my DOORSTEP (he must really like Kristin). My roommate was amazing, as usual, probably winning the prize because she got up before 5 am to make me cinnamon rolls before work. The teacher that is in the room next to me (I would be completely neglecting her influence on my teacher life if I did not acknowledge her for this) jumped in my room and yelled "Happy Birthday!". The best part of that one was how she reminded me about how special it was about 7 more times after she did it. I love sarcasm. And I love my birthday. I always feel so... loved.
My mom was here this weekend to celebrate with me, and it was just what I needed. Literally. She bought me all the clothes I needed. But really, it always helps to have her around, talking me down from the ledge and giving me endless wisdom about teaching and life in general. We have too much fun together, especially when she pretends she's my sister and that our waiters are hitting on her. Good one, Mom.
We got to go to my aunt and uncle's house for a little family dinner, which was also nice. I underestimated how great it would be to have family around, especially because I didn't spend much time with them before moving here. Overall, an excellent birthday weekend, only to become BETTER because it is extended to last for Homecoming. Did I mention I can't wait?
More on Growing Up
I think this is what I really meant to blog on when I thought about growing up and all of that business. Reflecting on the fact that I am 23 now, and finally at the age when birthdays stop meaning anything. My kids were so cute when they found out it was my birthday, probably because we're finally starting to love each other. They were trying to guess how old I was. The first guess was 31, which kind of depressed me, but listening to their "logical" guesses after that (ranging from 90 to 9) I realized that they still need work on North Carolina Standard Course of Study Competency Goal 1 (number sense... duh).
But after spending the day telling them to sit up and stay focused and finish their work and use nice words... I started to wonder when those become things we beginning doing without being told. I think of it every time I sit in a chair without my feet on the floor, when I don't tell the cashier they didn't ring up one of my frozen dinners, when I check my cell phone during a TFA lecture on the core values. Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal, pay attention- as children we believe that all adults follow these cardinal rules, that with growing up comes a maturity that is built only from time, minutes upon minutes up days of sheer experience. We believe that growing up happens simultaneously as we grow bigger. We believe that virtues like honesty and loyalty come out like facial hair or hips.
That's not true. I think that's one of the most disturbing things about growing up. The moment I realized that adults lied and cheated and stole, that they could be wrong, I felt this sense of disgust. How can children ever learn if the adults in their lives are doing things that, had they been back in 1st grade, would get them referred to a school therapist and admin team. We use the labels in the schools all the time for our kids- crybaby, bully, manipulator- but some of these things don't wear off with a growth spurt and a dose of puberty. At least not unless you take the initiative to follow those basic rules introduced in kindergarten and have people around you shaping you into a better person.
Just a birthday thought.
But after spending the day telling them to sit up and stay focused and finish their work and use nice words... I started to wonder when those become things we beginning doing without being told. I think of it every time I sit in a chair without my feet on the floor, when I don't tell the cashier they didn't ring up one of my frozen dinners, when I check my cell phone during a TFA lecture on the core values. Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal, pay attention- as children we believe that all adults follow these cardinal rules, that with growing up comes a maturity that is built only from time, minutes upon minutes up days of sheer experience. We believe that growing up happens simultaneously as we grow bigger. We believe that virtues like honesty and loyalty come out like facial hair or hips.
That's not true. I think that's one of the most disturbing things about growing up. The moment I realized that adults lied and cheated and stole, that they could be wrong, I felt this sense of disgust. How can children ever learn if the adults in their lives are doing things that, had they been back in 1st grade, would get them referred to a school therapist and admin team. We use the labels in the schools all the time for our kids- crybaby, bully, manipulator- but some of these things don't wear off with a growth spurt and a dose of puberty. At least not unless you take the initiative to follow those basic rules introduced in kindergarten and have people around you shaping you into a better person.
Just a birthday thought.
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