Preparing for England, More Jane Austen, and Religion

In a few weeks I hop on a plane to start teacher training in England. In the meantime my mother has been barging into my room about five times a day screaming about some errand we need to run before September. Everything is an emergency to her, like she has no concept of time or of importance: "DO YOU HAVE ENOUGH SOCKS FOR ENGLAND?! YOU NEED SOCKS! WE NEED TO GET SOCKS TODAY!" I tell her that I have a lot of socks, but I could get some more in the next couple of weeks. "YOU REALLY NEED TO GET THIS DONE!" Okay, I tell her, but even if I completely forget it's not like they don't sell socks in England. Then my mom calms down for about five minutes, after which she flings open my door and starts screaming her concerns over whether I have enough underwear.

Some thoughts on Jane Austen

So this week I've been reading a bit of Jane Austen. See, every now and then I descend into a mood where I just want to lounge on the couch in my underpants and have a good cry, and a few days ago a period drama film seemed like the perfect side dish to complement tears and snot dripping out of my nose.

It's healthy, I promise.

Anyway, I settled on "Mansfield Park," which turned out to be pretty enjoyable. Well, MOST of it turned out to be pretty enjoyable, except the parts that kept awkwardly insisting that the characters address the issue of Britain's role in the slave trade. I hadn't yet read "Mansfield Park," but I had to assume that this was a creative liberty taken by the screenwriter/director, an assumption which inspired me to read the book. Because, even though I'm all about the abolition of slavery, let's just be honest for a second: Jane Austen's books are about who danced with who, who eloped with who, and who violated some kind of code of propriety that you as a modern reader don't fully understand and need to have explained to you by the Internet--I'm not calling these books shallow (and in fact I would agree with those who say that Jane Austen seemed to deeply understand people's characters), I'm just saying that when you try to turn a Jane Austen book into a cinematic commentary on the slave trade, you're just מפגר.

Anyway, my point is that over the past few days I've been reading "Mansfield Park" and loving it. But I have two other points to make:

Quick, Stéphanie, Consuela and Niamh, pee on the nearest man you can find--the Americans have arrived!

Any American woman who has spent any time abroad can tell you that foreign women are (in the case of the horsier European women, literally) chomping at the bit to pee on their men. And no, I'm not talking about the prevalence of some really fucked up porn in certain parts of Europe, but rather the significant percentage of foreign women who feel threatened by us American gals. Sure, it could be that they just don't like us, but I noticed that their coldness tends to significantly intensify when we're in the presence of a male, in the same way that my Australian cattle dog was a sweet old thing but used to get seriously heated when anyone else tried to get near HIS tree, the tree that he had lovingly coated in piss.

Let's get one thing straight: not once back home in America has another girl EVER treated me as a threat. And frankly I can see why they don't. My hair looks like shit, I have glasses (and, to top it off, they're never clean), I have a stomach the size of a medium-sized planet, and the homeless man who lives outside the Subway shop by the freeway has nicer clothing than I do. I can't recall a single time a stranger has ever tried to approach me or hit on me in the US.

Abroad, however, things are quite different, and whenever my Yankish roots become apparent (usually when I talk too loudly in fancy restaurants, try to communicate with foreigners by speaking SLOW AND LOUD ENGLISH, or just wear bright white sneakers), it's like someone beat me with a sexy stick. (Never thought I'd be able to say that about myself). I don't know if these men are enchanted by my American eternal cheeriness and pioneer spirit or if they're just desperate enough for a green card, but they seem to make a beeline for me and my fellow American girls, carelessly mowing down tons of sexy local girls on the way, and they are apparently oblivious to the fact that I'm fugly and could also stand to buy a better fitting bra.

So I guess that sort of answers my question about why foreign women get so territorial over their men. And I guess I shouldn't complain about the fact that my sex appeal is going to increase tenfold when I move to the UK, and instead use it as an opportunity to bag Prince Harry.

This is why you shouldn't do drugs, kids.

Just listen.

If there is one lesson that I learned from spending half a year marooned in a laundry room where no one spoke English, it is simply to listen. I'm not saying I'm totally cured of my former illnesses (talking for the sake of talking or trying to constantly crack jokes instead of actually listening), but spending that much time in an environment where any response on your part requires two weeks of advance notice to ensure all the tenses match really makes you weigh the importance of any statement you make. And more often than not you realize that what you have to say is not worth what you could be listening to.

Well apparently no one taught this lesson to Ivy League graduates. Because, based on my experience during a 4th of July party, they are incapable of shutting the fuck up for any moment longer than it takes to take a sip from their glasses of wine. I see occasional silent moments as a welcome moment to catch my breath and reflect on the conversation so far. They, on the other hand, seem to consider occasional silent moments as welcome as loud farts in polite company. I suppose I shouldn't judge them for not listening, because with their constant, loud ramblings the problem is actually that they don't even hear--actual active listening would be too much to ask for.

Akimba Revisited.

A couple nights ago I went to my high school reunion. To begin with reunions are pretty awkward: experiencing a solitary night of friendship with people you chose long ago not to stay in touch with? Yeah... My big complaint, however, was that reunions are only fun if one of your former classmates has gained a shit ton of weight and now looks like he/she has his/her own gravitational pull. Unfortunately, I'm that classmate. But I bet no one noticed it too much since I was fat in high school too. [*Fist Pump!*]

It wasn't that bad though. I had fun being intentionally vague about my future plans, drinking way too much, and laughing at some boys who grew extra hands when drunk and others who took the reunion's open bar as an opportunity for a nice long sob.

But the most memorable part of the evening was hands down a hug I received from a fellow classmate. I don't remember it because of the poignancy of a reunion of two dear friends, but because of the dread I felt when I saw her coming in for a hug while completely and utterly (and obviously) akimba.

So I guess it's sort of like The Office

My mom thinks if I'm going to be a teacher come September I should probably have a real job first. You know, the traditional, 9-5 desk job where you spend most of your time figuring out how to covertly check Facebook or make paperclip sculptures. Today, however, I tried to mix it up by coloring in an entire Post-It note with purple ink. Yesterday my personal goal was to find a naughty word that the office's computer software recognized. It recognized vag but not ass, so I spent a solid hour reflecting on why that might be so.

And apparently it's crucial that I have this experience before entering into the teaching profession.

So since last Monday I've been working in my own dear mumsy's office. To be honest, it's actually a pretty sweet gig: no matter how badly I fuck up, everyone still has to be nice to me because I'm the boss's daughter. Granted, I'm trying really hard to avoid fucking up horribly, and so far so good, but the sentiment is the same when I do something right. If I successfully complete the phone number look-up mission they sent me on, I am showered with praise that seems to suggest that this was no mere phone number that I found. No, with the scale of my findings I make Indiana Jones look like a complete jackass. Mortals could not accomplish this feat and return to tell the tale.

The Doctor Who Exercise Program(me)

So I'm fat. Pudgy. Overweight. Chunky. Whatever. Has the issue reached such an extreme that I can no longer walk for even five minutes without getting out of breath? No. But the point is that for my own health I need to lose some weight.

The problem is motivation. The notion of "health" is sort of an abstract concept at my age. 22-year-olds, even ones who can't complete a mile within 15 minutes, don't die of fat. So the fact that I understand on a rational and objective level that I need to decrease my girth to something healthier just doesn't do it for me. And being able to dress in cuter clothing is hardly a motivator for me since I've never been particularly interested in clothing. I could have the body of a supermodel and I'd still dress like a haredi hobo--no, I don't mean like urban homeless chic or whatever that trend is called, I mean legit gross. Nor does the idea of being able to attract guys have any appeal for me, since I'd rather be the fattest woman on the planet and die of Twinkie poisoning than be with someone whose love for me is contingent on my being within a certain weight range. As for comments from my mother about my weight as motivation to lose weight, well, sometimes I wonder if I'm choosing to be fat just out of spite.

The problem is that I'm not a rational girl/lady/woman who carefully weighs (is there a pun in there?) her options and with a complete lack of emotion decides to go with the one with the most items in the column labeled "PROS." No, instead I am motivated by fiction and my whims. And, most of all, I am motivated by Doctor Who.

Why the Bible is like a second grader

I genuinely enjoy reading the Bible. I may be an offensive blasphemer and a believer in common sense religion (the basic tenet? "Don't be an asshole."), but I do try regularly to make a bit of time to read bits of the Bible. In fact, I wish Bible were a required subject in public schools--not because it's true (I mean, it may be...but that's a different argument for a different post), but just because it's a great read. All at once it's like a crime thriller, romance novel, and history book with elements of poetry and Judy Blume's "Superfudge" thrown in. And just for good measure parts of the good book read like a massive "Don't get drunk!" PSA. And if my fandom of the Bible makes me in any way even the tiniest bit like the nutjob haredim of Mea Shearim or like rural American Christians who quote Revelation like nerds quote Monty Python, then so be it.

Year 9s with blood on their hands and that hymn where you sing whatever you want to sing.

"Youuuuu well haf blud ohn yurrrrr haaaaaands!" screamed the crazy Scottish broad to a dance studio filled with 100 8th graders.

Why on earth was a woman with mad hair, a beaded hippie bag and a Scottish accent so strong that I was concerned it might be contagious telling a bunch of 13 year olds that their actions were dangerous enough to kill somebody and put blood on their (in some cases pre-) pubescent hands? Had they been peddling drugs to one another? Had they been holding Fight Club meetings during recess? Had they been playing Frogger with the traffic on the nearby high street?

No. They'd been doing Jesus arms on the stairs.

Let's rewind a bit.

Headmasters: (Not so) Child-friendly Daleks?

If there is a creature stranger than a headmaster, I'd sure like to meet it. Maybe it's just the schools I went to, but they always seem to be men obsessed with the concepts of honor, dignity and achievement. And I understand that as a head of a school that maybe abstract nouns are exactly the sort of thing you should be obsessed with, but the problem is that headmasters always like to use themselves as an example...a fact which teenagers inevitably exploit the shit out of.


Today I'm not even going to get into my elementary school headmasters in any detail. I simply don't have time to analyze the ex-military man who paddled children or the stiff man who sounded so much like those newfangled talking handheld dictionary computers of the early 90's that we used to type in words, press "SAY" and scare our teacher into thinking he had stealthily popped in for an inspection. No, I won't talk about these two men, although I'd briefly like to ask what the hell the Board of Trustees was thinking when they decided to hire someone who is about as expressive as a dalek that daleks find boring to run a school for children 11 and under.

This is why I'm fat, PART 2: Middle School Soccer

By the time I graduated to middle school my confidence in the usefulness of PE and its coaches had all but disappeared, but for some reason I still gave team sports a chance. Maybe I thought that at a different school the coaches would be different, but unfortunately PE coaches worldwide have to pass a standardized insanity test, and those who are sane enough to be capable of putting together a complete sentence are disqualified from the job.

Oh well. In any case, my first year at my new school I made the soccer team. I say "made" as if there were tryouts and the possibility of getting cut from the team, which is what I'd like to think. This was a decade ago though, so I no longer remember--but I have a hard time believing there could have possibly been cuts, because the girl who totally freaked out that one time a gnat flew into her eye managed to make the team. ...

This is why I'm fat, PART 1: Elementary School PE

The best part about middle school was the fact that the seniors had to park their cars on the football field because of the construction. I wish I could negate that statement with something about how the best part was how accomplished I felt being in the middle school play (I actually felt deeply, deeply embarrassed over how stupid it was; I played the role of someone's conscience) or how the best part was Science Fair (The teacher actually told me he was "embarrassed" over how idiotic my experiment was), but in reality the aspect of middle school that at the end of the day made me feel the warmest and fuzziest inside was the fact that I was able to hide from the PE coaches while running laps.

I look back now and wonder how my life would be different if I had just given in to the barely intelligible demands that I run faster and longer which were delivered through a bullhorn held by a woman who looked like a Brazilian Arnold Schwarzenegger driving a golf cart. I would be much less of a lardass, that's for sure. Or maybe I wouldn't. When I think of all the diving behind Volvos, ducking underneath Jeeps and William Shatner shoulder rolling to the other side of BMWs that my friends and I did, we worked up quite a sweat. And I'm not entirely sure that it was less work than just doing the laps in the first place.

But before I go any further about how I ended up sucking at PE in middle and upper school, let's take a trip back to elementary school...

Here's what I'd do if the world really was going to end on 5/21

This morning I was driving around my hometown trying to find a Target that clearly had taken lessons in stealth and hiding from the town of Brigadoon when suddenly I stumbled across a billboard that announced that the world was going to end on May 21, 2011. I gotta say, it's a little startling to come across an announcement about the end of the world sandwiched between other billboards advertising "Rango" or the latest designer jeans, but ok.

Apparently a Christian radio station has taken upon itself the burden of informing the people of the world that their days are numbered. Well, presumably the days of their existence are numbered but infinite, because on May 21st they're gonna join the ranks of eternity. Therefore they're begging the people of the world to cower before God and ask for forgiveness, because eternity is a looooong time to be spending anywhere, let alone Hell. Then again, I'm not so sure an eternity in Heaven would be all that great either, because I get bored ANYWHERE, even Disneyland or the White House or a Bond villain's secret lair in a volcano, after about ten minutes. As a 10th grade/year 11 RE student in London once mused aloud...

Are you playing 'Quaker Meeting'?, or the Religious Society of Friends: Least Welcoming of Farts

Probably the most disappointing thing about the Quaker meeting I went to today was that the Quaker Oats guy wasn't there. I know, I know, as a student and future teacher of religion I should be able to look past such stupid stereotypes and come to a deeper and more accurate understanding of religions and blablabla, but this blog is pretty much my only chance to share my honest understanding of the Quakers. When I think Quaker, I think of the Quaker Oats man, a joke in the Little House series (A guy enters a room full of people at a party sitting in awkward silence and he says something like, "Oh, are you guys playing Quaker Meeting?"), and a book in the Dear America series about a Quaker girl in New England who talked about candles and how Quakers can't dance. Maybe it wasn't New England exactly; I'm from the Western US so I tend to label everything east of the Mississippi as New England--not because I'm incapable of learning the difference, but because I just don't give a shit what the difference is.

But I knew the Quakers, like the Ayorthians in Ella Enchanted, have a soft spot for silence, and after getting over my initial disappointment at not seeing anyone who even remotely resembled the Quaker Oats man I settled in for the silence I was expecting.

It ended up being a lot harder than I expected. I mean, being the urban hermit that I am, I've gone for days at a time without saying anything besides "Thank you" to shopkeepers. Keeping my mouth shut for about an hour? That shouldn't be a problem. Except actually it is a problem, because whenever I realize that something is expected of me, I have the almost uncontrollable desire to do the exact opposite. On airplanes I happily sit with my seatbelt buckled..until the seatbelt sign comes on, at which point a voice in my head starts insisting that I take it off and go for a promenade down the aisles. I normally dress pretty modestly--nothing above the knee, nothing too low-cut, and usually long sleeves. I also don't really like over familiar physical contact with people I don't know very well. But whenever I walk through ultra-orthodox neighborhoods like Meah Shearim in Jerusalem, which posts dress code signs on its streets, I get an overwhelming urge to Hulk out of all of my clothing and run around naked while throwing myself upon orthodox boys, trying to hug them and cover them in sloppy kisses ...

Ah, to be 13 again

It's kind of reassuring to me that, even across the pond, gravity still pulls us downward, the sky is still above us, and 13 year old boys are still complete perverts. I am greatly comforted by the fact that the 13 year old boy's unique composition has the same kind of obvious international presence as McDonald's. Except instead of ubiquitous Big Macs it's this ubiquitous struggle of feeling extremely frightened and confused (like the male version of "Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret") while also trying to project total confidence (“Although I only figured out what my penis was for just yesterday, I have now decided that I am Casanova/the God of Sex/Gene Simmons.”).

Call me strange, but this is what I find so wonderful about 13 year olds—the girls have sprinted ahead in the puberty race by this point and from an outsider perspective seem to have quite suddenly woken up one morning with a bad case of the boobs, and the guys have to pretend that they’ve caught up. No, the guys have to pretend that they were never behind, and so they resort to wildly inventing stories and experiences that they can boast about to their similarly pre-pubescent guy friends (within earshot of the girls, who by this point are so far advanced in their development that some have actually started menopause), but the wonderful thing about a lot of these boasts is that they don’t ring true to the ears of someone with actual experience or to the ears of anyone in possession of female anatomy. But, most of the time, this doesn’t apply to 13 year old boys—I mean, there can’t possibly be too many of them with female anatomy. ...