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Questions and Issues

In my experience, I've seen a lot of Asian/Asian American women try to cope with mental health issues and a lot of family pressure. There have been girls that I've known that have dealt with it by running out and being the complete opposite of what their parents want, there are girls that just cope, and then there are the girls that don't know what the hell to do with themselves. This has been a recurring problem for a while (and was written about in an issue of Audrey magazine once), and you often hear stories of Asian American committing suicide. Irish Chang, the author, killed herself in her car, and another girl at MIT once lit herself on fire while dealing with her mental illness. While people are trying to focus on the question of "nature vs. nurture," I still wonder when a shift in focus will come and harder, cultural questions on acceptance, coping, and awareness become the forefront.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/05/16/asian.suicides/index.html

Push to achieve tied to suicide in Asian-American women POSTED: 8:45 p.m. EDT, May 16, 2007 var clickExpire = "-1"; Story Highlights• Suicide second-leading cause of death for Asian-American women 15-24

• Highest suicide rate among women of any race, ethnicity for that age group

• Experts cite "model minority" expectations, family pressures as factors

By Elizabeth Cohen

CNN

Adjust font size: ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- One evening in 1990, Eliza Noh hung up the phone with her sister. Disturbed about the conversation, Noh immediately started writing a letter to her sister, a college student who was often depressed. "I told her I supported her, and I encouraged her," Noh says.But her sister never read the letter. By the time it arrived, she'd killed herself.Moved by that tragedy, Noh has spent much of her professional life studying depression and suicide among Asian-American women. An assistant professor of Asian-American studies at California State University at Fullerton, Noh has read the sobering statistics from the Department of Health and Human Services: Asian-American women ages 15-24 have the highest suicide rate of women in any race or ethnic group in that age group. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for Asian-American women in that age range. (Watch more about Asian-Americans' feelings of pressure to hide depression )Depression starts even younger than age 15. Noh says one study has shown that as young as the fifth grade, Asian-American girls have the highest rate of depression so severe they've contemplated suicide.As Noh and others have searched for the reasons, a complex answer has emerged. First and foremost, they say "model minority" pressure -- the pressure some Asian-American families put on children to be high achievers at school and professionally -- helps explain the problem. "In my study, the model minority pressure is a huge factor," says Noh, who studied 41 Asian-American women who'd attempted or contemplated suicide. "Sometimes it's very overt -- parents say, 'You must choose this major or this type of job' or 'You should not bring home As and Bs, only As," she says. "And girls have to be the perfect mother and daughter and wife as well." Family pressure often affects girls more than boys, according to Dr. Dung Ngo, a psychologist at Baylor University in Texas. "When I go talk to high school students and ask them if they experience pressure, the majority who raised their hands were the girls," he said. Asian-American parents, he says, are stricter with girls than with boys. "The cultural expectations are that Asian women don't have that kind of freedom to hang out, to go out with friends, to do the kinds of things most teenagers growing up want to do." And in Asian cultures, he added, you don't question parents. "The line of communication in Asian culture one way. It's communicated from the parents downward," he says. "If you can't express your anger, it turns to helplessness. It turns inward into depression for girls. For boys it's more likely to turn outwards into rebellious behavior and behavioral problems like drinking and fighting." But Noh says pressure from within the family doesn't completely explain the shocking suicide statistics for young women like her sister. She says American culture has adopted the myth that Asians are smarter and harder-working than other minorities. "It's become a U.S.-based ideology, popular from the 1960s onward, that Asian-Americans are smarter, and should be doing well whether at school or work." Noh added that simply being a minority can also lead to depression. "My sister had a really low self-image. She thought of herself as ugly," she says. "We grew up in Houston in the '70s and '80s, and at that time in school there were very few Asian faces. The standard of beauty she wanted to emulate was white women." In college, Noh's sister had plastic surgery to make her eyes and nose appear more European-looking. Heredity, Noh says, also plays a role. She says in her study, many of the suicidal women had mothers who were also suicidal. She says perhaps it's genetic -- some biochemical marker handed down from mother to daughter -- or perhaps it's the daughter observing the mother's behavior. "It makes sense. You model yourself after the parent of the same gender." As varied as the causes of depression, Noh says she saw just as many approaches to overcoming it. While some women in her study did seek help through counseling and prescription drugs, most of her subjects were ambivalent or even negative about counseling. "They felt the counselor couldn't understand their situation. They said it would have helped if the counselor were another Asian-American woman." These women found help through their religious faith, herbs, acupuncture, or becoming involved in groups that help other Asian women. "It shows the resourcefulness of these women," she says. "They had really diverse healing strategies."Elizabeth Cohen is a CNN Medical News correspondent. Senior producer Jennifer Pifer and associate producer Sabriya Rice contributed to this report.

I KNOW! Bad blogger, bad blogger! Continuing later tonight!

Questions and Issues

In my experience, I've seen a lot of Asian/Asian American women try to cope with mental health issues and a lot of family pressure. There have been girls that I've known that have dealt with it by running out and being the complete opposite of what their parents want, there are girls that just cope, and then there are the girls that don't know what the hell to do with themselves. This has been a recurring problem for a while (and was written about in an issue of Audrey magazine once), and you often hear stories of Asian American committing suicide. Irish Chang, the author, killed herself in her car, and another girl at MIT once lit herself on fire while dealing with her mental illness. While people are trying to focus on the question of "nature vs. nurture," I still wonder when a shift in focus will come and harder, cultural questions on acceptance, coping, and awareness become the forefront.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/05/16/asian.suicides/index.html

Push to achieve tied to suicide in Asian-American women POSTED: 8:45 p.m. EDT, May 16, 2007 var clickExpire = "-1"; Story Highlights• Suicide second-leading cause of death for Asian-American women 15-24

• Highest suicide rate among women of any race, ethnicity for that age group

• Experts cite "model minority" expectations, family pressures as factors

By Elizabeth Cohen

CNN

Adjust font size: ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- One evening in 1990, Eliza Noh hung up the phone with her sister. Disturbed about the conversation, Noh immediately started writing a letter to her sister, a college student who was often depressed. "I told her I supported her, and I encouraged her," Noh says.But her sister never read the letter. By the time it arrived, she'd killed herself.Moved by that tragedy, Noh has spent much of her professional life studying depression and suicide among Asian-American women. An assistant professor of Asian-American studies at California State University at Fullerton, Noh has read the sobering statistics from the Department of Health and Human Services: Asian-American women ages 15-24 have the highest suicide rate of women in any race or ethnic group in that age group. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for Asian-American women in that age range. (Watch more about Asian-Americans' feelings of pressure to hide depression )Depression starts even younger than age 15. Noh says one study has shown that as young as the fifth grade, Asian-American girls have the highest rate of depression so severe they've contemplated suicide.As Noh and others have searched for the reasons, a complex answer has emerged. First and foremost, they say "model minority" pressure -- the pressure some Asian-American families put on children to be high achievers at school and professionally -- helps explain the problem. "In my study, the model minority pressure is a huge factor," says Noh, who studied 41 Asian-American women who'd attempted or contemplated suicide. "Sometimes it's very overt -- parents say, 'You must choose this major or this type of job' or 'You should not bring home As and Bs, only As," she says. "And girls have to be the perfect mother and daughter and wife as well." Family pressure often affects girls more than boys, according to Dr. Dung Ngo, a psychologist at Baylor University in Texas. "When I go talk to high school students and ask them if they experience pressure, the majority who raised their hands were the girls," he said. Asian-American parents, he says, are stricter with girls than with boys. "The cultural expectations are that Asian women don't have that kind of freedom to hang out, to go out with friends, to do the kinds of things most teenagers growing up want to do." And in Asian cultures, he added, you don't question parents. "The line of communication in Asian culture one way. It's communicated from the parents downward," he says. "If you can't express your anger, it turns to helplessness. It turns inward into depression for girls. For boys it's more likely to turn outwards into rebellious behavior and behavioral problems like drinking and fighting." But Noh says pressure from within the family doesn't completely explain the shocking suicide statistics for young women like her sister. She says American culture has adopted the myth that Asians are smarter and harder-working than other minorities. "It's become a U.S.-based ideology, popular from the 1960s onward, that Asian-Americans are smarter, and should be doing well whether at school or work." Noh added that simply being a minority can also lead to depression. "My sister had a really low self-image. She thought of herself as ugly," she says. "We grew up in Houston in the '70s and '80s, and at that time in school there were very few Asian faces. The standard of beauty she wanted to emulate was white women." In college, Noh's sister had plastic surgery to make her eyes and nose appear more European-looking. Heredity, Noh says, also plays a role. She says in her study, many of the suicidal women had mothers who were also suicidal. She says perhaps it's genetic -- some biochemical marker handed down from mother to daughter -- or perhaps it's the daughter observing the mother's behavior. "It makes sense. You model yourself after the parent of the same gender." As varied as the causes of depression, Noh says she saw just as many approaches to overcoming it. While some women in her study did seek help through counseling and prescription drugs, most of her subjects were ambivalent or even negative about counseling. "They felt the counselor couldn't understand their situation. They said it would have helped if the counselor were another Asian-American woman." These women found help through their religious faith, herbs, acupuncture, or becoming involved in groups that help other Asian women. "It shows the resourcefulness of these women," she says. "They had really diverse healing strategies."Elizabeth Cohen is a CNN Medical News correspondent. Senior producer Jennifer Pifer and associate producer Sabriya Rice contributed to this report.

I KNOW! Bad blogger, bad blogger! Continuing later tonight!

Questions and Issues

In my experience, I've seen a lot of Asian/Asian American women try to cope with mental health issues and a lot of family pressure. There have been girls that I've known that have dealt with it by running out and being the complete opposite of what their parents want, there are girls that just cope, and then there are the girls that don't know what the hell to do with themselves. This has been a recurring problem for a while (and was written about in an issue of Audrey magazine once), and you often hear stories of Asian American committing suicide. Irish Chang, the author, killed herself in her car, and another girl at MIT once lit herself on fire while dealing with her mental illness. While people are trying to focus on the question of "nature vs. nurture," I still wonder when a shift in focus will come and harder, cultural questions on acceptance, coping, and awareness become the forefront.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/05/16/asian.suicides/index.html

Push to achieve tied to suicide in Asian-American women POSTED: 8:45 p.m. EDT, May 16, 2007 var clickExpire = "-1"; Story Highlights• Suicide second-leading cause of death for Asian-American women 15-24

• Highest suicide rate among women of any race, ethnicity for that age group

• Experts cite "model minority" expectations, family pressures as factors

By Elizabeth Cohen

CNN

Adjust font size: ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- One evening in 1990, Eliza Noh hung up the phone with her sister. Disturbed about the conversation, Noh immediately started writing a letter to her sister, a college student who was often depressed. "I told her I supported her, and I encouraged her," Noh says.But her sister never read the letter. By the time it arrived, she'd killed herself.Moved by that tragedy, Noh has spent much of her professional life studying depression and suicide among Asian-American women. An assistant professor of Asian-American studies at California State University at Fullerton, Noh has read the sobering statistics from the Department of Health and Human Services: Asian-American women ages 15-24 have the highest suicide rate of women in any race or ethnic group in that age group. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for Asian-American women in that age range. (Watch more about Asian-Americans' feelings of pressure to hide depression )Depression starts even younger than age 15. Noh says one study has shown that as young as the fifth grade, Asian-American girls have the highest rate of depression so severe they've contemplated suicide.As Noh and others have searched for the reasons, a complex answer has emerged. First and foremost, they say "model minority" pressure -- the pressure some Asian-American families put on children to be high achievers at school and professionally -- helps explain the problem. "In my study, the model minority pressure is a huge factor," says Noh, who studied 41 Asian-American women who'd attempted or contemplated suicide. "Sometimes it's very overt -- parents say, 'You must choose this major or this type of job' or 'You should not bring home As and Bs, only As," she says. "And girls have to be the perfect mother and daughter and wife as well." Family pressure often affects girls more than boys, according to Dr. Dung Ngo, a psychologist at Baylor University in Texas. "When I go talk to high school students and ask them if they experience pressure, the majority who raised their hands were the girls," he said. Asian-American parents, he says, are stricter with girls than with boys. "The cultural expectations are that Asian women don't have that kind of freedom to hang out, to go out with friends, to do the kinds of things most teenagers growing up want to do." And in Asian cultures, he added, you don't question parents. "The line of communication in Asian culture one way. It's communicated from the parents downward," he says. "If you can't express your anger, it turns to helplessness. It turns inward into depression for girls. For boys it's more likely to turn outwards into rebellious behavior and behavioral problems like drinking and fighting." But Noh says pressure from within the family doesn't completely explain the shocking suicide statistics for young women like her sister. She says American culture has adopted the myth that Asians are smarter and harder-working than other minorities. "It's become a U.S.-based ideology, popular from the 1960s onward, that Asian-Americans are smarter, and should be doing well whether at school or work." Noh added that simply being a minority can also lead to depression. "My sister had a really low self-image. She thought of herself as ugly," she says. "We grew up in Houston in the '70s and '80s, and at that time in school there were very few Asian faces. The standard of beauty she wanted to emulate was white women." In college, Noh's sister had plastic surgery to make her eyes and nose appear more European-looking. Heredity, Noh says, also plays a role. She says in her study, many of the suicidal women had mothers who were also suicidal. She says perhaps it's genetic -- some biochemical marker handed down from mother to daughter -- or perhaps it's the daughter observing the mother's behavior. "It makes sense. You model yourself after the parent of the same gender." As varied as the causes of depression, Noh says she saw just as many approaches to overcoming it. While some women in her study did seek help through counseling and prescription drugs, most of her subjects were ambivalent or even negative about counseling. "They felt the counselor couldn't understand their situation. They said it would have helped if the counselor were another Asian-American woman." These women found help through their religious faith, herbs, acupuncture, or becoming involved in groups that help other Asian women. "It shows the resourcefulness of these women," she says. "They had really diverse healing strategies."Elizabeth Cohen is a CNN Medical News correspondent. Senior producer Jennifer Pifer and associate producer Sabriya Rice contributed to this report.

I KNOW! Bad blogger, bad blogger! Continuing later tonight!

Angry. Infuriated.

I walked into class today with no problems, and the 14- and 15-year-olds seemed to be in a good mood. While they were walking in, two of them had food with them and I told them they weren't allowed to eat during classtime, which is a school-wide rule. They acknowledged it, shoved one more pretzel stick into their mealy little mouths, and put the food in the desk. While I was trying to teach this unruly group, another class was standing in the hallway waiting for their teacher to show up and decided that it was a good idea to repeatedly open the door, and after I locked it, bang on it as hard as they could to disrupt my class. I was getting angry at them. But I lost it when my own class upped their antics another level.

Amidst the talking and the random little bits that were going on, I moved some kids to try and break up the talkers and wrote down the title of our new project, "Historical Roleplay." I was asking them what it was when I saw the same girls eating again. I told them they weren't allowed to eat and they said, "Ok, Miss, I'm sorry," and just sat there like they were about to watch television at home. I told them to take out their notebooks, but only half of them did it. I told them to be quiet, and only 5 of them were quiet. Then I saw one of the girls put more food in her mouth.

I marched right over there and stuck my hand out, gesturing for the food. She said, "NOOOOOOO!" I said, "NOW!" She folded her arms. Finally, she stuck her hand in her desk, took out a mini-cake and when I went to take it, shoved the mini-cake in her mouth like an obsese Cabbage-Patch Child who hadn't eaten in a month. My head exploded and I grabbed her by the wrist and was about to throw her out when I realized the door was locked. The entire class was chattering now, and some of them were laughing, including the girl with the cake in her mouth. She started laughing so hard, in fact, when I turned to grab the key to the door off the desk, she spit cake all over my hair and then ran back to her seat, laughing the entire way.

She fucking spit cake all over my hair.

Never in my adult life have I experienced degradation like I have with this class. They were still laughing as I stood there, brushing masticated crumbs off my clothes and hair. They thought it was hilarious. I took a breath, unlocked the door, and stood outside for two minutes. She came out after me and started to say sorry, but I said, "I don't want to see you. I don't want to hear your voice. Go inside right now." But she wouldn't listen. It was like being a guest on the Jerry Springer Show, just two people talking and talking and no one listening to anyone else. Finally, she said, "I just want to tell Ms. Valova (the asst. director) what happened."

I could feel another gasket in my head pop out of place as I could just imagine all the excuses and reasons and smokescreens this student, who I have had a lot of trouble with before, would tell the assistant director. (Because, y'know, it's never the student's fault.) I told her to go inside again, and I gathered myself and went back inside. I told them they would have a test and the project because of their behavior. I told them I was upset. I started again, but the laughing and the talking continued, as if nothing happened. After three minutes of this, I got too angry, too frustrated, and too fed up to care about anyone in that room. I walked out on them.

I am so angry and frustrated. I can't talk to these kids. I don't want to see them. I don't want to have anything to do with anyone younger than 18 years old. I told the other teachers what happened, and some were horrified and some had no reaction. One of the assistant directors asked me if this happened in the States, and I told her that it probably happened in some schools, but not at schools that held themselves in the esteem that my school did - as the only school in town where students go on to study at university, where they continually strive to offer high-quality, local, public education. It also turns out that these kids have been angering the other teachers, as well, and those teachers have scheduled a parents' meeting before this incident. The Cake Spitter keeps trying to apologize to me, in an effort to prevent me sharing this information with administration and her parents, but I've already told administration and I will damn well be vocal at this meeting. I'm not letting this go, not for a while.

This afternoon, some people were talking about the potential new volunteer we were going to get to fill my spot after I leave, and one of my colleagues asked, "Oh, Lucia, you don't want to stay another year?"

I looked at her with half-opened eyes bereft of the make-up I wiped off because I always cry when I get extremely angry or frustrated. Taking a minute to decide how to perfectly word what I wanted to say, I told her the truth. "A girl spit on me today."

Her facial expression said, "Ahhh..." as she understood why I was not going to stay here an extra year or an extra month or an extra week. Probably because I don't have 15-year-olds spitting on me in the States. Well, maybe in New Jersey...

Angry. Infuriated.

I walked into class today with no problems, and the 14- and 15-year-olds seemed to be in a good mood. While they were walking in, two of them had food with them and I told them they weren't allowed to eat during classtime, which is a school-wide rule. They acknowledged it, shoved one more pretzel stick into their mealy little mouths, and put the food in the desk. While I was trying to teach this unruly group, another class was standing in the hallway waiting for their teacher to show up and decided that it was a good idea to repeatedly open the door, and after I locked it, bang on it as hard as they could to disrupt my class. I was getting angry at them. But I lost it when my own class upped their antics another level.

Amidst the talking and the random little bits that were going on, I moved some kids to try and break up the talkers and wrote down the title of our new project, "Historical Roleplay." I was asking them what it was when I saw the same girls eating again. I told them they weren't allowed to eat and they said, "Ok, Miss, I'm sorry," and just sat there like they were about to watch television at home. I told them to take out their notebooks, but only half of them did it. I told them to be quiet, and only 5 of them were quiet. Then I saw one of the girls put more food in her mouth.

I marched right over there and stuck my hand out, gesturing for the food. She said, "NOOOOOOO!" I said, "NOW!" She folded her arms. Finally, she stuck her hand in her desk, took out a mini-cake and when I went to take it, shoved the mini-cake in her mouth like an obsese Cabbage-Patch Child who hadn't eaten in a month. My head exploded and I grabbed her by the wrist and was about to throw her out when I realized the door was locked. The entire class was chattering now, and some of them were laughing, including the girl with the cake in her mouth. She started laughing so hard, in fact, when I turned to grab the key to the door off the desk, she spit cake all over my hair and then ran back to her seat, laughing the entire way.

She fucking spit cake all over my hair.

Never in my adult life have I experienced degradation like I have with this class. They were still laughing as I stood there, brushing masticated crumbs off my clothes and hair. They thought it was hilarious. I took a breath, unlocked the door, and stood outside for two minutes. She came out after me and started to say sorry, but I said, "I don't want to see you. I don't want to hear your voice. Go inside right now." But she wouldn't listen. It was like being a guest on the Jerry Springer Show, just two people talking and talking and no one listening to anyone else. Finally, she said, "I just want to tell Ms. Valova (the asst. director) what happened."

I could feel another gasket in my head pop out of place as I could just imagine all the excuses and reasons and smokescreens this student, who I have had a lot of trouble with before, would tell the assistant director. (Because, y'know, it's never the student's fault.) I told her to go inside again, and I gathered myself and went back inside. I told them they would have a test and the project because of their behavior. I told them I was upset. I started again, but the laughing and the talking continued, as if nothing happened. After three minutes of this, I got too angry, too frustrated, and too fed up to care about anyone in that room. I walked out on them.

I am so angry and frustrated. I can't talk to these kids. I don't want to see them. I don't want to have anything to do with anyone younger than 18 years old. I told the other teachers what happened, and some were horrified and some had no reaction. One of the assistant directors asked me if this happened in the States, and I told her that it probably happened in some schools, but not at schools that held themselves in the esteem that my school did - as the only school in town where students go on to study at university, where they continually strive to offer high-quality, local, public education. It also turns out that these kids have been angering the other teachers, as well, and those teachers have scheduled a parents' meeting before this incident. The Cake Spitter keeps trying to apologize to me, in an effort to prevent me sharing this information with administration and her parents, but I've already told administration and I will damn well be vocal at this meeting. I'm not letting this go, not for a while.

This afternoon, some people were talking about the potential new volunteer we were going to get to fill my spot after I leave, and one of my colleagues asked, "Oh, Lucia, you don't want to stay another year?"

I looked at her with half-opened eyes bereft of the make-up I wiped off because I always cry when I get extremely angry or frustrated. Taking a minute to decide how to perfectly word what I wanted to say, I told her the truth. "A girl spit on me today."

Her facial expression said, "Ahhh..." as she understood why I was not going to stay here an extra year or an extra month or an extra week. Probably because I don't have 15-year-olds spitting on me in the States. Well, maybe in New Jersey...

Angry. Infuriated.

I walked into class today with no problems, and the 14- and 15-year-olds seemed to be in a good mood. While they were walking in, two of them had food with them and I told them they weren't allowed to eat during classtime, which is a school-wide rule. They acknowledged it, shoved one more pretzel stick into their mealy little mouths, and put the food in the desk. While I was trying to teach this unruly group, another class was standing in the hallway waiting for their teacher to show up and decided that it was a good idea to repeatedly open the door, and after I locked it, bang on it as hard as they could to disrupt my class. I was getting angry at them. But I lost it when my own class upped their antics another level.

Amidst the talking and the random little bits that were going on, I moved some kids to try and break up the talkers and wrote down the title of our new project, "Historical Roleplay." I was asking them what it was when I saw the same girls eating again. I told them they weren't allowed to eat and they said, "Ok, Miss, I'm sorry," and just sat there like they were about to watch television at home. I told them to take out their notebooks, but only half of them did it. I told them to be quiet, and only 5 of them were quiet. Then I saw one of the girls put more food in her mouth.

I marched right over there and stuck my hand out, gesturing for the food. She said, "NOOOOOOO!" I said, "NOW!" She folded her arms. Finally, she stuck her hand in her desk, took out a mini-cake and when I went to take it, shoved the mini-cake in her mouth like an obsese Cabbage-Patch Child who hadn't eaten in a month. My head exploded and I grabbed her by the wrist and was about to throw her out when I realized the door was locked. The entire class was chattering now, and some of them were laughing, including the girl with the cake in her mouth. She started laughing so hard, in fact, when I turned to grab the key to the door off the desk, she spit cake all over my hair and then ran back to her seat, laughing the entire way.

She fucking spit cake all over my hair.

Never in my adult life have I experienced degradation like I have with this class. They were still laughing as I stood there, brushing masticated crumbs off my clothes and hair. They thought it was hilarious. I took a breath, unlocked the door, and stood outside for two minutes. She came out after me and started to say sorry, but I said, "I don't want to see you. I don't want to hear your voice. Go inside right now." But she wouldn't listen. It was like being a guest on the Jerry Springer Show, just two people talking and talking and no one listening to anyone else. Finally, she said, "I just want to tell Ms. Valova (the asst. director) what happened."

I could feel another gasket in my head pop out of place as I could just imagine all the excuses and reasons and smokescreens this student, who I have had a lot of trouble with before, would tell the assistant director. (Because, y'know, it's never the student's fault.) I told her to go inside again, and I gathered myself and went back inside. I told them they would have a test and the project because of their behavior. I told them I was upset. I started again, but the laughing and the talking continued, as if nothing happened. After three minutes of this, I got too angry, too frustrated, and too fed up to care about anyone in that room. I walked out on them.

I am so angry and frustrated. I can't talk to these kids. I don't want to see them. I don't want to have anything to do with anyone younger than 18 years old. I told the other teachers what happened, and some were horrified and some had no reaction. One of the assistant directors asked me if this happened in the States, and I told her that it probably happened in some schools, but not at schools that held themselves in the esteem that my school did - as the only school in town where students go on to study at university, where they continually strive to offer high-quality, local, public education. It also turns out that these kids have been angering the other teachers, as well, and those teachers have scheduled a parents' meeting before this incident. The Cake Spitter keeps trying to apologize to me, in an effort to prevent me sharing this information with administration and her parents, but I've already told administration and I will damn well be vocal at this meeting. I'm not letting this go, not for a while.

This afternoon, some people were talking about the potential new volunteer we were going to get to fill my spot after I leave, and one of my colleagues asked, "Oh, Lucia, you don't want to stay another year?"

I looked at her with half-opened eyes bereft of the make-up I wiped off because I always cry when I get extremely angry or frustrated. Taking a minute to decide how to perfectly word what I wanted to say, I told her the truth. "A girl spit on me today."

Her facial expression said, "Ahhh..." as she understood why I was not going to stay here an extra year or an extra month or an extra week. Probably because I don't have 15-year-olds spitting on me in the States. Well, maybe in New Jersey...

I'VE MISSED YOU, TOO (Ok, not REALLY)

Yeah, I know. Where have I been? Trust me, when I see a music video like this, I ask myself the same damn question.

Recent (and will be included in a coming update): Istanbul, broken eyeglasses, orgasm headaches, evil eyes, my most awesome pizza, and regular news links.

No, seriously. WHERE WAS I?? Damn you, Nintendo, for making a zombie out of me!

I'VE MISSED YOU, TOO (Ok, not REALLY)

Yeah, I know. Where have I been? Trust me, when I see a music video like this, I ask myself the same damn question.

Recent (and will be included in a coming update): Istanbul, broken eyeglasses, orgasm headaches, evil eyes, my most awesome pizza, and regular news links.

No, seriously. WHERE WAS I?? Damn you, Nintendo, for making a zombie out of me!

I'VE MISSED YOU, TOO (Ok, not REALLY)

Yeah, I know. Where have I been? Trust me, when I see a music video like this, I ask myself the same damn question.

Recent (and will be included in a coming update): Istanbul, broken eyeglasses, orgasm headaches, evil eyes, my most awesome pizza, and regular news links.

No, seriously. WHERE WAS I?? Damn you, Nintendo, for making a zombie out of me!

Sober ThoughtsAfter reading a news bit on an AOL executive taking the time to make a documentary on the rape of Nanking, I decided to see if there was a trailer on YouTube and instead found a documentary made by an American PhD on the massacre. Despite the reptitive speech, the constant changing of pasted quotes on the screen, and the mall-quality graphic transitions in the video, I found the photos and video clips to be disturbing and offering the same general information I already knew on the subject. Of course, there were definitely more information here that gave you a more in-depth look of the incident, the background and mindset of the Japanese people, and the inclusion of the atrocities committed in the Philippines, as well, it was generally the same; Japanese army comes into Nanking and China - looting, burning, raping, killing - basically killing and torturing any and every living Chinese person they came across in their day. It's shocking, cruel, and probably still unknown by many people in this world as an event in history that some refer to as another Holocaust. Women (ages 10-80...10-80) were gang-raped, children were stabbed and tortured, men were buried alive and killed simply because they were Chinese. The Japanese army went through that city, scouring every building for victims and demanding refugees from the safety zones and then killing them after they had left the safe area. And Japan, to this day, denies that these atrocities have occurred, instead blaming the Chinese and American governments of trying to brainwash people. They, like many Holocaust deniers, are not just looking the other way, but staring straight into the eyes of the world, and saying that this never happened, and that all evidence has been fabricated by others to make Japan look bad to the world. They claim that there were no eyewitnesses.What the worst part about this entire Chinese v. Japanese mess is that people are still fighting over it. And not in a nice, academic way about it - the YouTube video has listed swears, racial epithats, and accusations under its "comments" section that reflect tones of disappointment, accusation, pity, and anger. They are from Chinese and Japanese people all over the world, and probably even from people that aren't Chinese or Japanese. It has been 70 years since the incident, and people cannot even agree if it has happened, much less go in a direction that could possibly heal relations between the two countries and cultures. It is something that puzzles me, hurts me, and disappoints me.I know I say a lot, in jest, about the Japanese, but in all honesty, I don't know many of them. I would like to get to know them because I think their culture is dynamic, innovative, and evolutionary. There is a lot that I don't know that I would like to know, and I think that there is a divide between Chinese people and Japanese people, which can trickle down into the immigrated generations of later years. It hasn't affected me as much, as my grandmothers never said anything about the Japanese (except one, brief moment in which I was told to never date a Japanese man), but I know that other people have been raised differently, and they think differently on the subject. There was a girl I once knew in high school, and during a discussion among friends about interracial dating, we had brought up intraracial dating - and whether we would date a Japanese guy. (Absolutely no Japanese people in little Kearny, New Jersey at the time.) She said that she would never, ever date a Japanese man, and that the Japanese were horrible because they can't admit what happened at Nanking. Her grandmother survived, somehow survived, and told her all about it when she a child. She was so insistent about this, and I had never seen here that angry before in the time that we had been friends. It made me think about her, and the dimensions that people have that we never know of until a slight mention of something, or a change in topic to something controversial. She felt a strong dislike, possibly even hate, towards people she had never met before - and in a way, this puzzled me because I couldn't relate to it.At that time, many teachers liked to fill you up with thoughts of conquering life and being able to do whatever you wanted to do in the world. High school students sometimes become drunk on opportunity and dreams, and I was drunk on this idealistic vision of one world, people holding hands, tolerance and co-existence, etc. I knew there were trouble among the lines of race and ethnicity, and that Chinese people had their own stereotypes of the other Asian cultures and peoples, but to experience such intolerance and dislike within one race was amazing to me at the time. I realized how wide the gap of understanding was between the various ethnicities within the Asian race, not only outside of it, and then I realized the gap between what I had been thinking and hoping for, and what actually was and existed in this world. This incident, I think, was where the root of my desire to work within the Asian Pacific Islander American community, and helped me understand the variety and complexities of an entirely different continent. I became sober with reality and became involved in college with the idea of working on the "small picture" that would lead to the ultamite "big picture," or anything that would take us closer to people getting along in the world. And it hasn't been a bad thing.Japan should start taking responsibility - not just for Nanking, but for the Philippines, Korea, and all the other things they have done to others, as well as themselves. Women's history doesn't exist there, and the inequality between the genders has not changed, the perfect example of which can be reflected even in their own royal family, as part of Japanese society breathed a sigh of relief that there was a male heir to one day be named monarch of this country - and not a female one. The war memorial in Japan should not be visited by government ministers or high-ranking officials until accountability has occurred and the steps to rectify the situation and intra-continental relations are improved between Japan and all other countries in Asia. The government should recognize the contributions made by Japanese women in their culture and history and discourage the fetishization of the young females.It's time for a change. And I shouldn't have to say this, but I never want to hear the word "Jap" again.Conversations...At the cafe with the school psychologist, Petia, and co-worker/friend Marina on the upcoming Chinese New Year partyMarina: Oh, Petia, Lucy says we need to get the cardboard tubes from rolls of toilet paper to make these crafts she was talking about.
Petia: Oh, that sounds easy! We use a roll of toilet paper in three days at home! I already have one for you!
Me: Three days? It takes me like three weeks to use one roll of toilet paper...
Petia (laughing): Oh, you live alone!
Me: Yeah...I live...alone...Can I get some booze in this juice?Having class at the cafe when only five students show upIvailo: Miss, I met a really cool girl this weekend.
Me: You should marry her, Ivailo.
Ivalio: Miss, she likes Satan and has tried suicide three times!
Me: ...Maybe you shouldn't get married then, Ivailo.
Ivailo: Why not? She's cool!Leaving the cafe after class and somehow Hitler comes up...Ilian: Oh, Hitler was stupid.
Me (knowing my students): Ilian...
Ilian: I know, Miss. Hitler is NOT funny.
Me (thinking): Well, at least I've taught them something about history.

Sober ThoughtsAfter reading a news bit on an AOL executive taking the time to make a documentary on the rape of Nanking, I decided to see if there was a trailer on YouTube and instead found a documentary made by an American PhD on the massacre. Despite the reptitive speech, the constant changing of pasted quotes on the screen, and the mall-quality graphic transitions in the video, I found the photos and video clips to be disturbing and offering the same general information I already knew on the subject. Of course, there were definitely more information here that gave you a more in-depth look of the incident, the background and mindset of the Japanese people, and the inclusion of the atrocities committed in the Philippines, as well, it was generally the same; Japanese army comes into Nanking and China - looting, burning, raping, killing - basically killing and torturing any and every living Chinese person they came across in their day. It's shocking, cruel, and probably still unknown by many people in this world as an event in history that some refer to as another Holocaust. Women (ages 10-80...10-80) were gang-raped, children were stabbed and tortured, men were buried alive and killed simply because they were Chinese. The Japanese army went through that city, scouring every building for victims and demanding refugees from the safety zones and then killing them after they had left the safe area. And Japan, to this day, denies that these atrocities have occurred, instead blaming the Chinese and American governments of trying to brainwash people. They, like many Holocaust deniers, are not just looking the other way, but staring straight into the eyes of the world, and saying that this never happened, and that all evidence has been fabricated by others to make Japan look bad to the world. They claim that there were no eyewitnesses.What the worst part about this entire Chinese v. Japanese mess is that people are still fighting over it. And not in a nice, academic way about it - the YouTube video has listed swears, racial epithats, and accusations under its "comments" section that reflect tones of disappointment, accusation, pity, and anger. They are from Chinese and Japanese people all over the world, and probably even from people that aren't Chinese or Japanese. It has been 70 years since the incident, and people cannot even agree if it has happened, much less go in a direction that could possibly heal relations between the two countries and cultures. It is something that puzzles me, hurts me, and disappoints me.I know I say a lot, in jest, about the Japanese, but in all honesty, I don't know many of them. I would like to get to know them because I think their culture is dynamic, innovative, and evolutionary. There is a lot that I don't know that I would like to know, and I think that there is a divide between Chinese people and Japanese people, which can trickle down into the immigrated generations of later years. It hasn't affected me as much, as my grandmothers never said anything about the Japanese (except one, brief moment in which I was told to never date a Japanese man), but I know that other people have been raised differently, and they think differently on the subject. There was a girl I once knew in high school, and during a discussion among friends about interracial dating, we had brought up intraracial dating - and whether we would date a Japanese guy. (Absolutely no Japanese people in little Kearny, New Jersey at the time.) She said that she would never, ever date a Japanese man, and that the Japanese were horrible because they can't admit what happened at Nanking. Her grandmother survived, somehow survived, and told her all about it when she a child. She was so insistent about this, and I had never seen here that angry before in the time that we had been friends. It made me think about her, and the dimensions that people have that we never know of until a slight mention of something, or a change in topic to something controversial. She felt a strong dislike, possibly even hate, towards people she had never met before - and in a way, this puzzled me because I couldn't relate to it.At that time, many teachers liked to fill you up with thoughts of conquering life and being able to do whatever you wanted to do in the world. High school students sometimes become drunk on opportunity and dreams, and I was drunk on this idealistic vision of one world, people holding hands, tolerance and co-existence, etc. I knew there were trouble among the lines of race and ethnicity, and that Chinese people had their own stereotypes of the other Asian cultures and peoples, but to experience such intolerance and dislike within one race was amazing to me at the time. I realized how wide the gap of understanding was between the various ethnicities within the Asian race, not only outside of it, and then I realized the gap between what I had been thinking and hoping for, and what actually was and existed in this world. This incident, I think, was where the root of my desire to work within the Asian Pacific Islander American community, and helped me understand the variety and complexities of an entirely different continent. I became sober with reality and became involved in college with the idea of working on the "small picture" that would lead to the ultamite "big picture," or anything that would take us closer to people getting along in the world. And it hasn't been a bad thing.Japan should start taking responsibility - not just for Nanking, but for the Philippines, Korea, and all the other things they have done to others, as well as themselves. Women's history doesn't exist there, and the inequality between the genders has not changed, the perfect example of which can be reflected even in their own royal family, as part of Japanese society breathed a sigh of relief that there was a male heir to one day be named monarch of this country - and not a female one. The war memorial in Japan should not be visited by government ministers or high-ranking officials until accountability has occurred and the steps to rectify the situation and intra-continental relations are improved between Japan and all other countries in Asia. The government should recognize the contributions made by Japanese women in their culture and history and discourage the fetishization of the young females.It's time for a change. And I shouldn't have to say this, but I never want to hear the word "Jap" again.Conversations...At the cafe with the school psychologist, Petia, and co-worker/friend Marina on the upcoming Chinese New Year partyMarina: Oh, Petia, Lucy says we need to get the cardboard tubes from rolls of toilet paper to make these crafts she was talking about.
Petia: Oh, that sounds easy! We use a roll of toilet paper in three days at home! I already have one for you!
Me: Three days? It takes me like three weeks to use one roll of toilet paper...
Petia (laughing): Oh, you live alone!
Me: Yeah...I live...alone...Can I get some booze in this juice?Having class at the cafe when only five students show upIvailo: Miss, I met a really cool girl this weekend.
Me: You should marry her, Ivailo.
Ivalio: Miss, she likes Satan and has tried suicide three times!
Me: ...Maybe you shouldn't get married then, Ivailo.
Ivailo: Why not? She's cool!Leaving the cafe after class and somehow Hitler comes up...Ilian: Oh, Hitler was stupid.
Me (knowing my students): Ilian...
Ilian: I know, Miss. Hitler is NOT funny.
Me (thinking): Well, at least I've taught them something about history.

Sober ThoughtsAfter reading a news bit on an AOL executive taking the time to make a documentary on the rape of Nanking, I decided to see if there was a trailer on YouTube and instead found a documentary made by an American PhD on the massacre. Despite the reptitive speech, the constant changing of pasted quotes on the screen, and the mall-quality graphic transitions in the video, I found the photos and video clips to be disturbing and offering the same general information I already knew on the subject. Of course, there were definitely more information here that gave you a more in-depth look of the incident, the background and mindset of the Japanese people, and the inclusion of the atrocities committed in the Philippines, as well, it was generally the same; Japanese army comes into Nanking and China - looting, burning, raping, killing - basically killing and torturing any and every living Chinese person they came across in their day. It's shocking, cruel, and probably still unknown by many people in this world as an event in history that some refer to as another Holocaust. Women (ages 10-80...10-80) were gang-raped, children were stabbed and tortured, men were buried alive and killed simply because they were Chinese. The Japanese army went through that city, scouring every building for victims and demanding refugees from the safety zones and then killing them after they had left the safe area. And Japan, to this day, denies that these atrocities have occurred, instead blaming the Chinese and American governments of trying to brainwash people. They, like many Holocaust deniers, are not just looking the other way, but staring straight into the eyes of the world, and saying that this never happened, and that all evidence has been fabricated by others to make Japan look bad to the world. They claim that there were no eyewitnesses.What the worst part about this entire Chinese v. Japanese mess is that people are still fighting over it. And not in a nice, academic way about it - the YouTube video has listed swears, racial epithats, and accusations under its "comments" section that reflect tones of disappointment, accusation, pity, and anger. They are from Chinese and Japanese people all over the world, and probably even from people that aren't Chinese or Japanese. It has been 70 years since the incident, and people cannot even agree if it has happened, much less go in a direction that could possibly heal relations between the two countries and cultures. It is something that puzzles me, hurts me, and disappoints me.I know I say a lot, in jest, about the Japanese, but in all honesty, I don't know many of them. I would like to get to know them because I think their culture is dynamic, innovative, and evolutionary. There is a lot that I don't know that I would like to know, and I think that there is a divide between Chinese people and Japanese people, which can trickle down into the immigrated generations of later years. It hasn't affected me as much, as my grandmothers never said anything about the Japanese (except one, brief moment in which I was told to never date a Japanese man), but I know that other people have been raised differently, and they think differently on the subject. There was a girl I once knew in high school, and during a discussion among friends about interracial dating, we had brought up intraracial dating - and whether we would date a Japanese guy. (Absolutely no Japanese people in little Kearny, New Jersey at the time.) She said that she would never, ever date a Japanese man, and that the Japanese were horrible because they can't admit what happened at Nanking. Her grandmother survived, somehow survived, and told her all about it when she a child. She was so insistent about this, and I had never seen here that angry before in the time that we had been friends. It made me think about her, and the dimensions that people have that we never know of until a slight mention of something, or a change in topic to something controversial. She felt a strong dislike, possibly even hate, towards people she had never met before - and in a way, this puzzled me because I couldn't relate to it.At that time, many teachers liked to fill you up with thoughts of conquering life and being able to do whatever you wanted to do in the world. High school students sometimes become drunk on opportunity and dreams, and I was drunk on this idealistic vision of one world, people holding hands, tolerance and co-existence, etc. I knew there were trouble among the lines of race and ethnicity, and that Chinese people had their own stereotypes of the other Asian cultures and peoples, but to experience such intolerance and dislike within one race was amazing to me at the time. I realized how wide the gap of understanding was between the various ethnicities within the Asian race, not only outside of it, and then I realized the gap between what I had been thinking and hoping for, and what actually was and existed in this world. This incident, I think, was where the root of my desire to work within the Asian Pacific Islander American community, and helped me understand the variety and complexities of an entirely different continent. I became sober with reality and became involved in college with the idea of working on the "small picture" that would lead to the ultamite "big picture," or anything that would take us closer to people getting along in the world. And it hasn't been a bad thing.Japan should start taking responsibility - not just for Nanking, but for the Philippines, Korea, and all the other things they have done to others, as well as themselves. Women's history doesn't exist there, and the inequality between the genders has not changed, the perfect example of which can be reflected even in their own royal family, as part of Japanese society breathed a sigh of relief that there was a male heir to one day be named monarch of this country - and not a female one. The war memorial in Japan should not be visited by government ministers or high-ranking officials until accountability has occurred and the steps to rectify the situation and intra-continental relations are improved between Japan and all other countries in Asia. The government should recognize the contributions made by Japanese women in their culture and history and discourage the fetishization of the young females.It's time for a change. And I shouldn't have to say this, but I never want to hear the word "Jap" again.Conversations...At the cafe with the school psychologist, Petia, and co-worker/friend Marina on the upcoming Chinese New Year partyMarina: Oh, Petia, Lucy says we need to get the cardboard tubes from rolls of toilet paper to make these crafts she was talking about.
Petia: Oh, that sounds easy! We use a roll of toilet paper in three days at home! I already have one for you!
Me: Three days? It takes me like three weeks to use one roll of toilet paper...
Petia (laughing): Oh, you live alone!
Me: Yeah...I live...alone...Can I get some booze in this juice?Having class at the cafe when only five students show upIvailo: Miss, I met a really cool girl this weekend.
Me: You should marry her, Ivailo.
Ivalio: Miss, she likes Satan and has tried suicide three times!
Me: ...Maybe you shouldn't get married then, Ivailo.
Ivailo: Why not? She's cool!Leaving the cafe after class and somehow Hitler comes up...Ilian: Oh, Hitler was stupid.
Me (knowing my students): Ilian...
Ilian: I know, Miss. Hitler is NOT funny.
Me (thinking): Well, at least I've taught them something about history.

"Bring me a change in the weather / Break open the sky..."It's very strange. These past few weeks, I feel like things aren't quite right or that things aren't going my way. And they're not monumental things, but they're just piling up, little by little. I can feel myself stressing over it and getting upset over little things, and recently, after a discussion with another volunteer, I've realized that I am really unhappy being here right now. I have felt an absolute joy in updating my resume, I constantly peruse job listings to see what I can apply to at this moment if I could, and I dream about where I would work after I leave this post. I know that this is a wonderful experience and that I will be defiintely sad when I leave and miss people here, but right now, I just don't want to be here. I want to be at home. I'm ready to go home.I feel like it's senioritis all over again. I've really stopped caring about things, have outrightly refused to teach certain people, and go on robotically through my day. There are times when I feel really up and then I feel really down, and then there's the plateau, when I wonder if there's anything else I have left in my life that I didn't lose when I left it behind in the States.There are less rewards in teaching this year; my kids aren't excited about their projects, seven-year-olds are throwing enormous tantrums, and 11-year-olds are backtalking me. This isn't any different from the experience of other volunteers in Bulgaria, but last year I felt that I at least had connection with most of my classes. This year, there's definitely a gap - one that I don't necessarily think is a result of my own attitude or behavior, but almost one where they won't meet me at the halfway point. Teaching 1st grade has its own moments, where I am always given hugs, but then they turn around and scream in my face. The other classes are different, but there's something weird with these new kids that I have this year. They're just....lazier somehow. Last year, I had lazy kids, but it seems like there's an epidemic this year. I don't really get it.Five more months! I just gotta power through! And things will get better. I just need to turn it around in my head before I can turn it around in life...Gah.Conversations in ClassMe: There's a holiday in February, where we celebrate the new year. But the new year is different because the calendar is different. It doesn't follow the sun, it follows the...
Reni: The moon!
Me: Right! And where do they celebrate this new year?
Sasho: In Egypt!
Vassil: In Libya!
Desi: In France!
Reni: THE MOON!Me: So now, I want you to write down five things that would make up your perfect day. And then I want you to write five things that would make the person next to you have the worst day.
Five minutes later...
Me: Nasko, what did you write? Let me read your notebook. (Notebook says: "I will meet Vassil's sister.") So, uh, Vassil, you have a sister?
Vassil: Yes, why?
All the other boys in the class: OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

"Bring me a change in the weather / Break open the sky..."It's very strange. These past few weeks, I feel like things aren't quite right or that things aren't going my way. And they're not monumental things, but they're just piling up, little by little. I can feel myself stressing over it and getting upset over little things, and recently, after a discussion with another volunteer, I've realized that I am really unhappy being here right now. I have felt an absolute joy in updating my resume, I constantly peruse job listings to see what I can apply to at this moment if I could, and I dream about where I would work after I leave this post. I know that this is a wonderful experience and that I will be defiintely sad when I leave and miss people here, but right now, I just don't want to be here. I want to be at home. I'm ready to go home.I feel like it's senioritis all over again. I've really stopped caring about things, have outrightly refused to teach certain people, and go on robotically through my day. There are times when I feel really up and then I feel really down, and then there's the plateau, when I wonder if there's anything else I have left in my life that I didn't lose when I left it behind in the States.There are less rewards in teaching this year; my kids aren't excited about their projects, seven-year-olds are throwing enormous tantrums, and 11-year-olds are backtalking me. This isn't any different from the experience of other volunteers in Bulgaria, but last year I felt that I at least had connection with most of my classes. This year, there's definitely a gap - one that I don't necessarily think is a result of my own attitude or behavior, but almost one where they won't meet me at the halfway point. Teaching 1st grade has its own moments, where I am always given hugs, but then they turn around and scream in my face. The other classes are different, but there's something weird with these new kids that I have this year. They're just....lazier somehow. Last year, I had lazy kids, but it seems like there's an epidemic this year. I don't really get it.Five more months! I just gotta power through! And things will get better. I just need to turn it around in my head before I can turn it around in life...Gah.Conversations in ClassMe: There's a holiday in February, where we celebrate the new year. But the new year is different because the calendar is different. It doesn't follow the sun, it follows the...
Reni: The moon!
Me: Right! And where do they celebrate this new year?
Sasho: In Egypt!
Vassil: In Libya!
Desi: In France!
Reni: THE MOON!Me: So now, I want you to write down five things that would make up your perfect day. And then I want you to write five things that would make the person next to you have the worst day.
Five minutes later...
Me: Nasko, what did you write? Let me read your notebook. (Notebook says: "I will meet Vassil's sister.") So, uh, Vassil, you have a sister?
Vassil: Yes, why?
All the other boys in the class: OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

"Bring me a change in the weather / Break open the sky..."It's very strange. These past few weeks, I feel like things aren't quite right or that things aren't going my way. And they're not monumental things, but they're just piling up, little by little. I can feel myself stressing over it and getting upset over little things, and recently, after a discussion with another volunteer, I've realized that I am really unhappy being here right now. I have felt an absolute joy in updating my resume, I constantly peruse job listings to see what I can apply to at this moment if I could, and I dream about where I would work after I leave this post. I know that this is a wonderful experience and that I will be defiintely sad when I leave and miss people here, but right now, I just don't want to be here. I want to be at home. I'm ready to go home.I feel like it's senioritis all over again. I've really stopped caring about things, have outrightly refused to teach certain people, and go on robotically through my day. There are times when I feel really up and then I feel really down, and then there's the plateau, when I wonder if there's anything else I have left in my life that I didn't lose when I left it behind in the States.There are less rewards in teaching this year; my kids aren't excited about their projects, seven-year-olds are throwing enormous tantrums, and 11-year-olds are backtalking me. This isn't any different from the experience of other volunteers in Bulgaria, but last year I felt that I at least had connection with most of my classes. This year, there's definitely a gap - one that I don't necessarily think is a result of my own attitude or behavior, but almost one where they won't meet me at the halfway point. Teaching 1st grade has its own moments, where I am always given hugs, but then they turn around and scream in my face. The other classes are different, but there's something weird with these new kids that I have this year. They're just....lazier somehow. Last year, I had lazy kids, but it seems like there's an epidemic this year. I don't really get it.Five more months! I just gotta power through! And things will get better. I just need to turn it around in my head before I can turn it around in life...Gah.Conversations in ClassMe: There's a holiday in February, where we celebrate the new year. But the new year is different because the calendar is different. It doesn't follow the sun, it follows the...
Reni: The moon!
Me: Right! And where do they celebrate this new year?
Sasho: In Egypt!
Vassil: In Libya!
Desi: In France!
Reni: THE MOON!Me: So now, I want you to write down five things that would make up your perfect day. And then I want you to write five things that would make the person next to you have the worst day.
Five minutes later...
Me: Nasko, what did you write? Let me read your notebook. (Notebook says: "I will meet Vassil's sister.") So, uh, Vassil, you have a sister?
Vassil: Yes, why?
All the other boys in the class: OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Blimey(?)!Wow, has it really been almost a month since I updated? I only remember the last time I really wrote because I still CANNOT stop laughing at that Richard Simmons video. Really, it's cracking me up. I'm chuckling as I type right now, despite the fact that I'm also watching Frasier on YouTube, but anyway, I digress. I can't believe I used the word "blimey," either. Talk about bad influences. Europe, pah!Remembering What Was - Adjusting to What IsA few weeks ago, I returned home. My grandmother had gone into the hospital after she pressed her panic button one night (a la "I've fallen and I can't get up!" commercial, except without the falling) and my entire family was worried about her health. The doctors had been saying for at least five years that she could go at any time - 94 years isn't exactly a small span of existence - but this time she was really showing signs of weariness and fatigue. My parents and sisters gave me notice to come home, and three days after my father said, "Come home and see your grandmother before she passes," I was on the plane to JFK.I stayed with my grandmother for a week before she passed away. During that week, her age had never seemed more apparent to me. She was forced to wear padded undergarments, use a potty in her bedroom, and couldn't stay awake for more than three or four hours at a time. At night, she would cry out in her sleep to the people in her memories and refused my efforts to help her whenever she needed anything. I would help her up, bring her water, and try to clean as much as she would allow me. Grandma was old. For the first time in my life, my grandmother was old, yet still was not ready to give a tiny bit of control to someone else in exchange for a bit of help. She was a woman of dignity and pride, and help from a grandchild was unacceptable in her world. But in the end, she had to receive help from every one of us.She got worse at the end of the week, and stopped talking after a couple days. Three days or so afterwards, she passed away - in her own apartment, in her own bed, on her own terms. She didn't want a hospital, she didn't want heroic efforts. Her passing was quiet, the morphine made it painless, and the presence of family provided a measure of comfort. We were all there for her in her last days, the following days, and now we continue to be there for each other in our days of remembrance.I've been trying to figure out how to write this and I'm still not sure if I'm doing it the right way, or the way I want to express this/these feelings. It's not very complex, but somehow it is; it isn't only sadness, but an unbelievable emptiness. When I came back to Bulgaria, I could feel the walls of my mind collapsing upon each other and I didn't know what to do. I ran away from site and went to Plovdiv, and spent time with my friend Peter and Melody. After that, I escaped to Septemvri and spend Christmas with my host family. I needed something regular, consistant, and familiar. I missed, and needed, my grandmother.A day or two after she passed, I had a dream about my grandmother. My aunt is superstitious and was very eager to learn who dreamt about Grandma first, to know who was the first person Grandma would reach out to from the afterlife. My cousin Olivia was the first, and I was the second. My cousin Olivia dreamt that Grandma was sitting on the middle cushion on the sofa in her living room and asked for socks. There was nothing strange about the dream, only that my grandmother almost never sits on the middle cushion of that sofa. (Her throne is the cushion on the right side.) When I had my dream, it was about going to the airport to come back to Bulgaria, but the airline had accidentally sent my bags somewhere else, and told me to find pack new luggage. I was running around trying to find things and ran into my grandmother's apartment, where she was sitting on the middle cushion of the couch, pointing her finger at me and snickering loudly while I was going crazy. I woke up after that, went downstairs, and woke my father up and told him. I could see him smile sadly, and he said, "It's a sign. She's hid your stuff because she doesn't want you to go."That struck me particularly hard. She had never wanted me to come to Bulgaria, to be so far from family and away from her support. She had constantly asked for my return after I had left, and when I did go back for a visit, asked, "So, you're coming to visit again next month, right?" It strained me, and left me weak.My second night in Plovdiv, I had another dream about my grandmother. We passed by each other at a train station (very European looking), except she was looking a lot younger and was wearing makeup. We screeched at each other like old girlfriends and finished off our sentences together. "You're even wearing makeup!" we screamed together at one point. And she seemed to say something like, "Oh, we all look this good where we are..." She seemed so happy, so free that it seemed to be a reassuring message to let me know she was ok. But it frightened me more than it comforted me.When I went to Septemvri the next day, I spent two hours that night crying in bed. I felt so shattered. The dream had felt like this final good-bye that I never wanted to hear from her. Despite mortality, despite reality, it just never seemed that my grandmother would ever die. She was always there, a constant force in our lives, and it's hard for me to figure out how to go on without her. Not that there is a choice. And I know I'm not the only one who is having a hard time...My cousins and sisters are also feeling an empitness, as well, one that we don't exactly know how to react to, but one we will deal with the way we always deal with things: eating. Working. Living.That night in Septemvri, I managed to sweep the pieces of myself together and hastily glued them into a bad imitation of what I am. I know there are bits missing, which won't be found again, because she's no longer in my life to fill them. Grandma owned pieces of me that I'm not sure I can get back. But I guess that's why we keep living...To fill the empty spaces with other, new pieces, and eventually not feel so broken or lost. Still trying to get my writing style back...bear with me....

Blimey(?)!Wow, has it really been almost a month since I updated? I only remember the last time I really wrote because I still CANNOT stop laughing at that Richard Simmons video. Really, it's cracking me up. I'm chuckling as I type right now, despite the fact that I'm also watching Frasier on YouTube, but anyway, I digress. I can't believe I used the word "blimey," either. Talk about bad influences. Europe, pah!Remembering What Was - Adjusting to What IsA few weeks ago, I returned home. My grandmother had gone into the hospital after she pressed her panic button one night (a la "I've fallen and I can't get up!" commercial, except without the falling) and my entire family was worried about her health. The doctors had been saying for at least five years that she could go at any time - 94 years isn't exactly a small span of existence - but this time she was really showing signs of weariness and fatigue. My parents and sisters gave me notice to come home, and three days after my father said, "Come home and see your grandmother before she passes," I was on the plane to JFK.I stayed with my grandmother for a week before she passed away. During that week, her age had never seemed more apparent to me. She was forced to wear padded undergarments, use a potty in her bedroom, and couldn't stay awake for more than three or four hours at a time. At night, she would cry out in her sleep to the people in her memories and refused my efforts to help her whenever she needed anything. I would help her up, bring her water, and try to clean as much as she would allow me. Grandma was old. For the first time in my life, my grandmother was old, yet still was not ready to give a tiny bit of control to someone else in exchange for a bit of help. She was a woman of dignity and pride, and help from a grandchild was unacceptable in her world. But in the end, she had to receive help from every one of us.She got worse at the end of the week, and stopped talking after a couple days. Three days or so afterwards, she passed away - in her own apartment, in her own bed, on her own terms. She didn't want a hospital, she didn't want heroic efforts. Her passing was quiet, the morphine made it painless, and the presence of family provided a measure of comfort. We were all there for her in her last days, the following days, and now we continue to be there for each other in our days of remembrance.I've been trying to figure out how to write this and I'm still not sure if I'm doing it the right way, or the way I want to express this/these feelings. It's not very complex, but somehow it is; it isn't only sadness, but an unbelievable emptiness. When I came back to Bulgaria, I could feel the walls of my mind collapsing upon each other and I didn't know what to do. I ran away from site and went to Plovdiv, and spent time with my friend Peter and Melody. After that, I escaped to Septemvri and spend Christmas with my host family. I needed something regular, consistant, and familiar. I missed, and needed, my grandmother.A day or two after she passed, I had a dream about my grandmother. My aunt is superstitious and was very eager to learn who dreamt about Grandma first, to know who was the first person Grandma would reach out to from the afterlife. My cousin Olivia was the first, and I was the second. My cousin Olivia dreamt that Grandma was sitting on the middle cushion on the sofa in her living room and asked for socks. There was nothing strange about the dream, only that my grandmother almost never sits on the middle cushion of that sofa. (Her throne is the cushion on the right side.) When I had my dream, it was about going to the airport to come back to Bulgaria, but the airline had accidentally sent my bags somewhere else, and told me to find pack new luggage. I was running around trying to find things and ran into my grandmother's apartment, where she was sitting on the middle cushion of the couch, pointing her finger at me and snickering loudly while I was going crazy. I woke up after that, went downstairs, and woke my father up and told him. I could see him smile sadly, and he said, "It's a sign. She's hid your stuff because she doesn't want you to go."That struck me particularly hard. She had never wanted me to come to Bulgaria, to be so far from family and away from her support. She had constantly asked for my return after I had left, and when I did go back for a visit, asked, "So, you're coming to visit again next month, right?" It strained me, and left me weak.My second night in Plovdiv, I had another dream about my grandmother. We passed by each other at a train station (very European looking), except she was looking a lot younger and was wearing makeup. We screeched at each other like old girlfriends and finished off our sentences together. "You're even wearing makeup!" we screamed together at one point. And she seemed to say something like, "Oh, we all look this good where we are..." She seemed so happy, so free that it seemed to be a reassuring message to let me know she was ok. But it frightened me more than it comforted me.When I went to Septemvri the next day, I spent two hours that night crying in bed. I felt so shattered. The dream had felt like this final good-bye that I never wanted to hear from her. Despite mortality, despite reality, it just never seemed that my grandmother would ever die. She was always there, a constant force in our lives, and it's hard for me to figure out how to go on without her. Not that there is a choice. And I know I'm not the only one who is having a hard time...My cousins and sisters are also feeling an empitness, as well, one that we don't exactly know how to react to, but one we will deal with the way we always deal with things: eating. Working. Living.That night in Septemvri, I managed to sweep the pieces of myself together and hastily glued them into a bad imitation of what I am. I know there are bits missing, which won't be found again, because she's no longer in my life to fill them. Grandma owned pieces of me that I'm not sure I can get back. But I guess that's why we keep living...To fill the empty spaces with other, new pieces, and eventually not feel so broken or lost. Still trying to get my writing style back...bear with me....

Blimey(?)!Wow, has it really been almost a month since I updated? I only remember the last time I really wrote because I still CANNOT stop laughing at that Richard Simmons video. Really, it's cracking me up. I'm chuckling as I type right now, despite the fact that I'm also watching Frasier on YouTube, but anyway, I digress. I can't believe I used the word "blimey," either. Talk about bad influences. Europe, pah!Remembering What Was - Adjusting to What IsA few weeks ago, I returned home. My grandmother had gone into the hospital after she pressed her panic button one night (a la "I've fallen and I can't get up!" commercial, except without the falling) and my entire family was worried about her health. The doctors had been saying for at least five years that she could go at any time - 94 years isn't exactly a small span of existence - but this time she was really showing signs of weariness and fatigue. My parents and sisters gave me notice to come home, and three days after my father said, "Come home and see your grandmother before she passes," I was on the plane to JFK.I stayed with my grandmother for a week before she passed away. During that week, her age had never seemed more apparent to me. She was forced to wear padded undergarments, use a potty in her bedroom, and couldn't stay awake for more than three or four hours at a time. At night, she would cry out in her sleep to the people in her memories and refused my efforts to help her whenever she needed anything. I would help her up, bring her water, and try to clean as much as she would allow me. Grandma was old. For the first time in my life, my grandmother was old, yet still was not ready to give a tiny bit of control to someone else in exchange for a bit of help. She was a woman of dignity and pride, and help from a grandchild was unacceptable in her world. But in the end, she had to receive help from every one of us.She got worse at the end of the week, and stopped talking after a couple days. Three days or so afterwards, she passed away - in her own apartment, in her own bed, on her own terms. She didn't want a hospital, she didn't want heroic efforts. Her passing was quiet, the morphine made it painless, and the presence of family provided a measure of comfort. We were all there for her in her last days, the following days, and now we continue to be there for each other in our days of remembrance.I've been trying to figure out how to write this and I'm still not sure if I'm doing it the right way, or the way I want to express this/these feelings. It's not very complex, but somehow it is; it isn't only sadness, but an unbelievable emptiness. When I came back to Bulgaria, I could feel the walls of my mind collapsing upon each other and I didn't know what to do. I ran away from site and went to Plovdiv, and spent time with my friend Peter and Melody. After that, I escaped to Septemvri and spend Christmas with my host family. I needed something regular, consistant, and familiar. I missed, and needed, my grandmother.A day or two after she passed, I had a dream about my grandmother. My aunt is superstitious and was very eager to learn who dreamt about Grandma first, to know who was the first person Grandma would reach out to from the afterlife. My cousin Olivia was the first, and I was the second. My cousin Olivia dreamt that Grandma was sitting on the middle cushion on the sofa in her living room and asked for socks. There was nothing strange about the dream, only that my grandmother almost never sits on the middle cushion of that sofa. (Her throne is the cushion on the right side.) When I had my dream, it was about going to the airport to come back to Bulgaria, but the airline had accidentally sent my bags somewhere else, and told me to find pack new luggage. I was running around trying to find things and ran into my grandmother's apartment, where she was sitting on the middle cushion of the couch, pointing her finger at me and snickering loudly while I was going crazy. I woke up after that, went downstairs, and woke my father up and told him. I could see him smile sadly, and he said, "It's a sign. She's hid your stuff because she doesn't want you to go."That struck me particularly hard. She had never wanted me to come to Bulgaria, to be so far from family and away from her support. She had constantly asked for my return after I had left, and when I did go back for a visit, asked, "So, you're coming to visit again next month, right?" It strained me, and left me weak.My second night in Plovdiv, I had another dream about my grandmother. We passed by each other at a train station (very European looking), except she was looking a lot younger and was wearing makeup. We screeched at each other like old girlfriends and finished off our sentences together. "You're even wearing makeup!" we screamed together at one point. And she seemed to say something like, "Oh, we all look this good where we are..." She seemed so happy, so free that it seemed to be a reassuring message to let me know she was ok. But it frightened me more than it comforted me.When I went to Septemvri the next day, I spent two hours that night crying in bed. I felt so shattered. The dream had felt like this final good-bye that I never wanted to hear from her. Despite mortality, despite reality, it just never seemed that my grandmother would ever die. She was always there, a constant force in our lives, and it's hard for me to figure out how to go on without her. Not that there is a choice. And I know I'm not the only one who is having a hard time...My cousins and sisters are also feeling an empitness, as well, one that we don't exactly know how to react to, but one we will deal with the way we always deal with things: eating. Working. Living.That night in Septemvri, I managed to sweep the pieces of myself together and hastily glued them into a bad imitation of what I am. I know there are bits missing, which won't be found again, because she's no longer in my life to fill them. Grandma owned pieces of me that I'm not sure I can get back. But I guess that's why we keep living...To fill the empty spaces with other, new pieces, and eventually not feel so broken or lost. Still trying to get my writing style back...bear with me....

Whaaaa..??How did I get 255 hits in one week? And the week's not even over yet! I'm floored by this. To thank you all, I have included a youtube video of the one thing that has made me roll around in fits of laughter. Hey, here's another thought...Who are you guys?! And why do you find me so interesting? Because I want to keep y'all coming back, so let me know what you want to read about!

Whaaaa..??How did I get 255 hits in one week? And the week's not even over yet! I'm floored by this. To thank you all, I have included a youtube video of the one thing that has made me roll around in fits of laughter. Hey, here's another thought...Who are you guys?! And why do you find me so interesting? Because I want to keep y'all coming back, so let me know what you want to read about!

Whaaaa..??How did I get 255 hits in one week? And the week's not even over yet! I'm floored by this. To thank you all, I have included a youtube video of the one thing that has made me roll around in fits of laughter. Hey, here's another thought...Who are you guys?! And why do you find me so interesting? Because I want to keep y'all coming back, so let me know what you want to read about!

The Road Leads...HomeWent home for a little bit for family reasons. If you need me, email me. If you're where I live, you can call me. Let's get together, yeah yeah yeah?

The Road Leads...HomeWent home for a little bit for family reasons. If you need me, email me. If you're where I live, you can call me. Let's get together, yeah yeah yeah?

The Road Leads...HomeWent home for a little bit for family reasons. If you need me, email me. If you're where I live, you can call me. Let's get together, yeah yeah yeah?

MissingA lot of people often ask me to say something for them in Chinese and are mystified when I refuse to say a word. While most of my friends back home believe that I am annoyed by this curiosity and sometimes obvious ignorance that all Asian people speak Chinese, the truth is - my Chinese is damn annoying. I speak in a super-high voice when I get excited, one I might describe as a cross between a nicotine-addicted valkry and a six-year-old that just attended a birthday party at McDonald's. The voice gets worse when I switch to Chinese, and with my skewed intonations and my nonexistent grammar usage, it's a miracle my grandma doesn't tear me into pieces with the catty words that serve as her claws. This video was taken back in August, when I had returned to the States for a brief time and spent some time with Grandma - fattening her up on noodles, dim sum, and general malarky!I was just viewing this video last night and got terribly homesick. This week is Thanksgiving, the mother of all holidays for me, and the holiday that is known in my family to belong to me because of my birthday. Ever since I was little, my mother has taken on the responsiblity of hosting around 15-20 people at our house for a gigantic turkey dinner with somewhat Chinese trimmings, in an effort to assimilate, acculturate, and give me a party that I never realized I would miss this much. Despite the changes in our family, people moving away, and transitions into adulthood for us kids, we still manage the same routine every year: watch part of the Thanksgiving parade on tv until we get bored. Watch a DVD I got for my birthday. Cook food and bicker over oven time. Sleep. Run to the supermarket for things that we forgot. Watch more DVDs. Reminisce about awkward moments in our childhood (we usually pick on one cousin per year). Imitate or re-enact famous moments in family history. (Ray and his flyaway fireball at Grandma's funeral. Kevin getting attacked by pigeons.) This is the second year in a row that I have missed out on my holiday. Something I have always thought was essentially mine. And I'm sad.Last year, November was a horrible month for me. My depression and homesickness began at the beginning of the month last year, and my then-boyfriend decided to break up with me two weeks before Thanksgiving and my birthday. I didn't get to talk to any of my family that entire month, and I didn't get any DVDs. Last year, I spent my birthday alone, wondering what the hell I was doing here.But there were bright spots: Thanksgiving at Maegen's last year yielded a birthday pumpkin pie and got me out of town for a little bit. One of my classes sang Happy Birthday and gave me flowers. The teachers started a collection and gave me money to buy a new sweater. I didn't feel so alone when these people were showing me their generosity and kindness.This year, things have looked up a bit in the beginning of November. Classes aren't going too badly, I met a man who is both kind and good-looking, my cat came back after escaping for a week, and I've been spending a lot of time away from town. Monotony is not a word I could use to describe this month, but it has provided me with much-needed distraction and activity that has helped me with overall sanity. But it slowed down last weekend, and while I was in town and spending a lot of time with friends and colleagues, the depression started in again. I've slowly been coming down since last night and the only thing that perked me up was my turkey congee. (SAD, right?!) I'm patiently waiting for care packages to arrive from family and friends, and I'm already grateful for whatever will be inside, because anything right now - even a box full of cat hair - would be welcome. (DO NOT TAKE THAT SERIOUSLY, ELIANA.) I don't have motivation to teach, and I was also summoned to school this morning to substitute for another English teacher who was absent. (This means I was woken up with a phone call that said, "Come to school in an hour.")I'm tired. And I want to go home for the holidays. I want to see decorated windows on 5th Avenue and Salvation Army Santas on street corners. I want to see frazzled women shopping for turkey, cranberry sauce, and stuffing at the supermarket the day before Thanksgiving. And then I want to see their confused husbands at the supermarket on Thanksgiving, trying to understand a list of forgotten ingredients that they have never heard of before. I want to watch Thanksgiving episodes of Friends, The Cosby Show, and Gilmore Girls. I want my Thanksgiving...Kitty's Man AdventuresI came back from a Halloween party in the old capitol, Veliko Tarnovo, and I was so exhausted from traveling that I didn't feel like playing with the cat. I guess he got lonely, but I still expected him to open my bedroom door in the middle of the night, snuggle into my legs, and give me an affectionate face smush in the morning. This time, however, I woke up in the morning with my bedroom door still closed and the brisk, autumn air breezing through my apartment. The wind had blown open my window, and Megatron jumped out! I searched the apartment for him, his usual spots, and he is nowhere to be found. I throw on jeans, run downstairs and visually scour the apartment building for signs of life - but there were no clues!A nice man outside was chopping wood and saw me running all over the place, looking for little kitty droppings or signs of tawny hair. After I told him about my cat, he asked me all sorts of questions and even introduced me to the couple that owned the apartment next to mine. We went into that apartment and looked all over, but there was no cat. I went back to Chris's old apartment and put out kibble, scattered catnip outside of my door, and searched for him everywhere I went in town. I couldn't find him anywhere! My son was missing from my grasp! He ran away, and was staying away!I decided that he would be back when he was ready to come back. So instead of worrying about it and calling the police and alerting them to the absence of my tiger, I waited. He was on his winter walkabout, his man-adventure. He would come home when he was ready, hungry, and cold. And he would say, in cat language, "Mama...Now I'm a man-cat." And I would say to him, "GET THE HELL IN THE HOUSE!" It would be a bittersweet reunion.The next weekend, I went to Plovdiv to visit a friend and was standing on my terrace after I returned. I wasn't really worried, but I had been missing my cat for a week and it was snowing in town. I hadn't heard kitty calls, didn't feel any kitty leg rubs, or any kitty love nips. There was a furry hole in my heart, and the hole tremored when I started to hear loud yowling coming from the outside of my apartment building. After a few minutes, I started to wonder if it was Megatron, and I ran downstairs with a flashlight and a sweater. I walked a few steps, and I started calling out, "Mew, mew!" and he responded in the like. I shined the flashlight in the direction of the noise and he stepped out, with his big, dark eyes calling out to me. His face seemed to say, "Mama, where were you?" while I was so in shock that he had come back of his choice that I almost cried from happiness. Megatron is back!I just re-read the entire section I just wrote. What has happened to me? That fucking sucked! Forgive me, readers. I'll be back in full-form soon enough...I hope! More to come...!

MissingA lot of people often ask me to say something for them in Chinese and are mystified when I refuse to say a word. While most of my friends back home believe that I am annoyed by this curiosity and sometimes obvious ignorance that all Asian people speak Chinese, the truth is - my Chinese is damn annoying. I speak in a super-high voice when I get excited, one I might describe as a cross between a nicotine-addicted valkry and a six-year-old that just attended a birthday party at McDonald's. The voice gets worse when I switch to Chinese, and with my skewed intonations and my nonexistent grammar usage, it's a miracle my grandma doesn't tear me into pieces with the catty words that serve as her claws. This video was taken back in August, when I had returned to the States for a brief time and spent some time with Grandma - fattening her up on noodles, dim sum, and general malarky!I was just viewing this video last night and got terribly homesick. This week is Thanksgiving, the mother of all holidays for me, and the holiday that is known in my family to belong to me because of my birthday. Ever since I was little, my mother has taken on the responsiblity of hosting around 15-20 people at our house for a gigantic turkey dinner with somewhat Chinese trimmings, in an effort to assimilate, acculturate, and give me a party that I never realized I would miss this much. Despite the changes in our family, people moving away, and transitions into adulthood for us kids, we still manage the same routine every year: watch part of the Thanksgiving parade on tv until we get bored. Watch a DVD I got for my birthday. Cook food and bicker over oven time. Sleep. Run to the supermarket for things that we forgot. Watch more DVDs. Reminisce about awkward moments in our childhood (we usually pick on one cousin per year). Imitate or re-enact famous moments in family history. (Ray and his flyaway fireball at Grandma's funeral. Kevin getting attacked by pigeons.) This is the second year in a row that I have missed out on my holiday. Something I have always thought was essentially mine. And I'm sad.Last year, November was a horrible month for me. My depression and homesickness began at the beginning of the month last year, and my then-boyfriend decided to break up with me two weeks before Thanksgiving and my birthday. I didn't get to talk to any of my family that entire month, and I didn't get any DVDs. Last year, I spent my birthday alone, wondering what the hell I was doing here.But there were bright spots: Thanksgiving at Maegen's last year yielded a birthday pumpkin pie and got me out of town for a little bit. One of my classes sang Happy Birthday and gave me flowers. The teachers started a collection and gave me money to buy a new sweater. I didn't feel so alone when these people were showing me their generosity and kindness.This year, things have looked up a bit in the beginning of November. Classes aren't going too badly, I met a man who is both kind and good-looking, my cat came back after escaping for a week, and I've been spending a lot of time away from town. Monotony is not a word I could use to describe this month, but it has provided me with much-needed distraction and activity that has helped me with overall sanity. But it slowed down last weekend, and while I was in town and spending a lot of time with friends and colleagues, the depression started in again. I've slowly been coming down since last night and the only thing that perked me up was my turkey congee. (SAD, right?!) I'm patiently waiting for care packages to arrive from family and friends, and I'm already grateful for whatever will be inside, because anything right now - even a box full of cat hair - would be welcome. (DO NOT TAKE THAT SERIOUSLY, ELIANA.) I don't have motivation to teach, and I was also summoned to school this morning to substitute for another English teacher who was absent. (This means I was woken up with a phone call that said, "Come to school in an hour.")I'm tired. And I want to go home for the holidays. I want to see decorated windows on 5th Avenue and Salvation Army Santas on street corners. I want to see frazzled women shopping for turkey, cranberry sauce, and stuffing at the supermarket the day before Thanksgiving. And then I want to see their confused husbands at the supermarket on Thanksgiving, trying to understand a list of forgotten ingredients that they have never heard of before. I want to watch Thanksgiving episodes of Friends, The Cosby Show, and Gilmore Girls. I want my Thanksgiving...Kitty's Man AdventuresI came back from a Halloween party in the old capitol, Veliko Tarnovo, and I was so exhausted from traveling that I didn't feel like playing with the cat. I guess he got lonely, but I still expected him to open my bedroom door in the middle of the night, snuggle into my legs, and give me an affectionate face smush in the morning. This time, however, I woke up in the morning with my bedroom door still closed and the brisk, autumn air breezing through my apartment. The wind had blown open my window, and Megatron jumped out! I searched the apartment for him, his usual spots, and he is nowhere to be found. I throw on jeans, run downstairs and visually scour the apartment building for signs of life - but there were no clues!A nice man outside was chopping wood and saw me running all over the place, looking for little kitty droppings or signs of tawny hair. After I told him about my cat, he asked me all sorts of questions and even introduced me to the couple that owned the apartment next to mine. We went into that apartment and looked all over, but there was no cat. I went back to Chris's old apartment and put out kibble, scattered catnip outside of my door, and searched for him everywhere I went in town. I couldn't find him anywhere! My son was missing from my grasp! He ran away, and was staying away!I decided that he would be back when he was ready to come back. So instead of worrying about it and calling the police and alerting them to the absence of my tiger, I waited. He was on his winter walkabout, his man-adventure. He would come home when he was ready, hungry, and cold. And he would say, in cat language, "Mama...Now I'm a man-cat." And I would say to him, "GET THE HELL IN THE HOUSE!" It would be a bittersweet reunion.The next weekend, I went to Plovdiv to visit a friend and was standing on my terrace after I returned. I wasn't really worried, but I had been missing my cat for a week and it was snowing in town. I hadn't heard kitty calls, didn't feel any kitty leg rubs, or any kitty love nips. There was a furry hole in my heart, and the hole tremored when I started to hear loud yowling coming from the outside of my apartment building. After a few minutes, I started to wonder if it was Megatron, and I ran downstairs with a flashlight and a sweater. I walked a few steps, and I started calling out, "Mew, mew!" and he responded in the like. I shined the flashlight in the direction of the noise and he stepped out, with his big, dark eyes calling out to me. His face seemed to say, "Mama, where were you?" while I was so in shock that he had come back of his choice that I almost cried from happiness. Megatron is back!I just re-read the entire section I just wrote. What has happened to me? That fucking sucked! Forgive me, readers. I'll be back in full-form soon enough...I hope! More to come...!

MissingA lot of people often ask me to say something for them in Chinese and are mystified when I refuse to say a word. While most of my friends back home believe that I am annoyed by this curiosity and sometimes obvious ignorance that all Asian people speak Chinese, the truth is - my Chinese is damn annoying. I speak in a super-high voice when I get excited, one I might describe as a cross between a nicotine-addicted valkry and a six-year-old that just attended a birthday party at McDonald's. The voice gets worse when I switch to Chinese, and with my skewed intonations and my nonexistent grammar usage, it's a miracle my grandma doesn't tear me into pieces with the catty words that serve as her claws. This video was taken back in August, when I had returned to the States for a brief time and spent some time with Grandma - fattening her up on noodles, dim sum, and general malarky!I was just viewing this video last night and got terribly homesick. This week is Thanksgiving, the mother of all holidays for me, and the holiday that is known in my family to belong to me because of my birthday. Ever since I was little, my mother has taken on the responsiblity of hosting around 15-20 people at our house for a gigantic turkey dinner with somewhat Chinese trimmings, in an effort to assimilate, acculturate, and give me a party that I never realized I would miss this much. Despite the changes in our family, people moving away, and transitions into adulthood for us kids, we still manage the same routine every year: watch part of the Thanksgiving parade on tv until we get bored. Watch a DVD I got for my birthday. Cook food and bicker over oven time. Sleep. Run to the supermarket for things that we forgot. Watch more DVDs. Reminisce about awkward moments in our childhood (we usually pick on one cousin per year). Imitate or re-enact famous moments in family history. (Ray and his flyaway fireball at Grandma's funeral. Kevin getting attacked by pigeons.) This is the second year in a row that I have missed out on my holiday. Something I have always thought was essentially mine. And I'm sad.Last year, November was a horrible month for me. My depression and homesickness began at the beginning of the month last year, and my then-boyfriend decided to break up with me two weeks before Thanksgiving and my birthday. I didn't get to talk to any of my family that entire month, and I didn't get any DVDs. Last year, I spent my birthday alone, wondering what the hell I was doing here.But there were bright spots: Thanksgiving at Maegen's last year yielded a birthday pumpkin pie and got me out of town for a little bit. One of my classes sang Happy Birthday and gave me flowers. The teachers started a collection and gave me money to buy a new sweater. I didn't feel so alone when these people were showing me their generosity and kindness.This year, things have looked up a bit in the beginning of November. Classes aren't going too badly, I met a man who is both kind and good-looking, my cat came back after escaping for a week, and I've been spending a lot of time away from town. Monotony is not a word I could use to describe this month, but it has provided me with much-needed distraction and activity that has helped me with overall sanity. But it slowed down last weekend, and while I was in town and spending a lot of time with friends and colleagues, the depression started in again. I've slowly been coming down since last night and the only thing that perked me up was my turkey congee. (SAD, right?!) I'm patiently waiting for care packages to arrive from family and friends, and I'm already grateful for whatever will be inside, because anything right now - even a box full of cat hair - would be welcome. (DO NOT TAKE THAT SERIOUSLY, ELIANA.) I don't have motivation to teach, and I was also summoned to school this morning to substitute for another English teacher who was absent. (This means I was woken up with a phone call that said, "Come to school in an hour.")I'm tired. And I want to go home for the holidays. I want to see decorated windows on 5th Avenue and Salvation Army Santas on street corners. I want to see frazzled women shopping for turkey, cranberry sauce, and stuffing at the supermarket the day before Thanksgiving. And then I want to see their confused husbands at the supermarket on Thanksgiving, trying to understand a list of forgotten ingredients that they have never heard of before. I want to watch Thanksgiving episodes of Friends, The Cosby Show, and Gilmore Girls. I want my Thanksgiving...Kitty's Man AdventuresI came back from a Halloween party in the old capitol, Veliko Tarnovo, and I was so exhausted from traveling that I didn't feel like playing with the cat. I guess he got lonely, but I still expected him to open my bedroom door in the middle of the night, snuggle into my legs, and give me an affectionate face smush in the morning. This time, however, I woke up in the morning with my bedroom door still closed and the brisk, autumn air breezing through my apartment. The wind had blown open my window, and Megatron jumped out! I searched the apartment for him, his usual spots, and he is nowhere to be found. I throw on jeans, run downstairs and visually scour the apartment building for signs of life - but there were no clues!A nice man outside was chopping wood and saw me running all over the place, looking for little kitty droppings or signs of tawny hair. After I told him about my cat, he asked me all sorts of questions and even introduced me to the couple that owned the apartment next to mine. We went into that apartment and looked all over, but there was no cat. I went back to Chris's old apartment and put out kibble, scattered catnip outside of my door, and searched for him everywhere I went in town. I couldn't find him anywhere! My son was missing from my grasp! He ran away, and was staying away!I decided that he would be back when he was ready to come back. So instead of worrying about it and calling the police and alerting them to the absence of my tiger, I waited. He was on his winter walkabout, his man-adventure. He would come home when he was ready, hungry, and cold. And he would say, in cat language, "Mama...Now I'm a man-cat." And I would say to him, "GET THE HELL IN THE HOUSE!" It would be a bittersweet reunion.The next weekend, I went to Plovdiv to visit a friend and was standing on my terrace after I returned. I wasn't really worried, but I had been missing my cat for a week and it was snowing in town. I hadn't heard kitty calls, didn't feel any kitty leg rubs, or any kitty love nips. There was a furry hole in my heart, and the hole tremored when I started to hear loud yowling coming from the outside of my apartment building. After a few minutes, I started to wonder if it was Megatron, and I ran downstairs with a flashlight and a sweater. I walked a few steps, and I started calling out, "Mew, mew!" and he responded in the like. I shined the flashlight in the direction of the noise and he stepped out, with his big, dark eyes calling out to me. His face seemed to say, "Mama, where were you?" while I was so in shock that he had come back of his choice that I almost cried from happiness. Megatron is back!I just re-read the entire section I just wrote. What has happened to me? That fucking sucked! Forgive me, readers. I'll be back in full-form soon enough...I hope! More to come...!