Sorry for that last boring, long post. I violated all rules of bloggery by going back and excising chunks of it.
Last night I dreamed I turned my car off the road and drove toward a marsh. “Don’t go that way,” I warned myself, but still I kept driving.
So this is what they meant by “intensive.” Remind me next time I go to grad school not to move across the country the night before classes start. Fourteen-hour schooldays, a filthy apartment I don’t have time to clean, living out of suitcases and boxes for a month, bills unpaid because checkbooks cannot be found — all add up to mounting panic.
For some reason, I packed my remote control to my bedside Bose radio/alarm clock. When I press the button nothing happens. Or maybe it does, somewhere.
On the bright side, Vermont is beautiful. There are many wonderful people at school — though I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked, “Are you… a teacher??” (Am I the age version of SNL’s “Pat” character?) Once or twice I’ve been reassured, “Well, you don’t act old.” I dwell in the realm of the backhanded compliment.
Tuesday: A local Abenaqui woman and Native American scholar welcomed us to her homeland. “We are never alone,” she said as a bee landed on my finger. She talked about ancestors. I thought of Dad who would have been so proud of my doing this, and Mom who is doing so much to support me. (I keep referring to Dad as my “ex-father,” I guess because I’m so used to my losses being of the “ex” rather than the “late” variety.)
[TJ: She reminded me of you.]
In the early evening, after classroom activities, we went contra dancing. All went well until someone’s misplaced foot met the back of my ankle while I was do-si-do-ing backwards. Crash, down I went on my bony butt. As I fell I should have been thinking, “Oh, please don’t break yet another foot,” but my sole concern was, “I’ll bet they’re all thinking, There goes the old lady.”
We made and ate and cleaned up after a spaghetti dinner. It’s Ramadan, so we waited till sundown to eat. I don’t know how the Muslim students survive these intensive days without food. I met a Tatiana, a young Russian girl who is bitterly homesick. Then there was Brandon, a 29-year-old from home. We spontaneously threw our arms around each other when we discovered our shared origins. He’s agreed to let me adopt him for the year because I miss my kids and he misses his mama.
10:00 pm: Home to my foulness-coated apartment that still smelled of marijuana from the previous resident.
Wednesday: I was touched to find messages for me in the hallway between the four apartments.
The drive to school is pretty.
Our first activity was to play a cooperative game called “Raging River.” I was determined not to be the one to wipe out this time, and succeeded.
We did another group activity that involved driving to Brattleboro, walking around and making a list of restaurants. The highlight was meeting Barack Obama. “My African brother!” shouted Moloko from South Africa.
While our group was ranging through town, another was making a poster of everyone in this year’s program.
Back at home, the landlord’s son, Peter, has been trying to help me clean. Standing in my kitchen, he said, “Well, I’d better go get Satchmo out of the basement.” Baffled and thinking he was a bit daft, I decided to humor him. Except that in my exhaustion I got Louis Armstrong and Sasquatch mixed up: “Well, I should’ve known he was in a basement in Vermont because I didn’t see him in Nepal anywhere. It makes sense he’d pick a cold and snowy place like this.” Peter didn’t say a word.
Thursday: Apparently teachers have been sending us critical, time-sensitive electronic and paper information, but the Powers-That-Be haven’t told us that, or how and where to find them.
I got word that I tested into intermediate Spanish! I’m so proud. I usually test into advanced beginner.
When I got home, Satchmo came over to visit.
Later I walked up to the screen house for a little respite.
Friday: Today I found a dirt road that shortcuts into the school. I really do like the bumpy morning drive through wood and meadow.
It has been a grueling week, exacerbated by the logistical chaos. I met for the first time with my advisor and complained (in concert with others) about the logistical chaos of the week. She was sympathetic. She looks as tired as I do, and it sounds as though the experience has been equally trying for the teachers.
I have to get my icebox and kitchen clean. The latter is still too dirty to eat in so I haven’t been eating enough. I can’t decide whether to pay overdue bills first, or clean so I can unpack, or do homework. Everything is urgent. Triage isn’t my speciality.
Starting Monday I’m taking two weeks of Turkish in a course that is called, aptly, “Shock Language.” Also starting Second Language Acquisition and continuing with Group Dynamics. Homework load is already overwhelming.
I’ve changed my mind about the second language I’ll study. Instead of Spanish I think I’m going to take Kiswahili (which they speak only in Tanzania and parts of the Republic of Congo). From my short experience in South Africa, I got the sense that Africans look at the universe in such totally different ways from us in the US. I’m curious to see how one of their languages reflects that. Haven’t decided on my elective(s) yet. Though I really want to take Introduction to Adult Education, I think I’m Theater for Social Change will win out. All that makes for the maximum allowable courseload, which is probably insane for me to attempt.
To close the orientation week there was another a speech on the lawn with some really pretty music in the background.
A smug young man approached me as I poured myself a Dixie cup of pink lemonade. “Are you part of the MAT [teaching] program?” he asked. I replied in the affirmative. “Oh, what do you teach?”
He lived.
On my way off-campus I encountered Genevieve who was game for an impromptu major shopping trip to Walmart over the river in New Hampshire. It’s so surreal to be a student again, buying irons and pillows and silverware.
You know those nightmares where you’re in school and you’ve forgotten to study all year and now it’s finals? Or (in my version) you’ve run off to school in your cotton dress and suddenly realized you’ve forgotten to put on underwear? Well, beware: they may come true.
I am very, very homesick for my family and my friends, so it’s good I’m busy. Sorry for not having written any e-mails, but there has been no time and no phone and no Internet.
Tonight’s full moon marks the end of my first week at school.
Sounds hectic, my dovelet. It also sounds incredible. And terrifying. And exhilarating.
I think “The drive to school is pretty” is a humongous understatement.
Theater for Social Change – tell me about this.
Dearest G: I’m so pleased to hear the rich details-encounters with sympaticos and assholes, alike (I was thinking Hilary could help with the epithet for the mean driver(s); but actually, reads as if you did right well for yourself). I checked my spelling for epithet, and the dictionary opened to “four-letter word” (I kid you not!). def: “any of several short words having ot do with sex or excrement and generally regarded as offensive or objectionable.” Yay, Webster’s!
What’s MAT stand for? (Or was I not paying attention?) Your new home looks soooo beeyewtifull! Some of the landscape reminds me of pictures you’ve shown me of your W(?) Virginia property, only with cooler undertones.
I like the pond.
I like the pond too, though every time I drive by it I think of Teddy Kennedy and his secretary.
Syd: Your observation of this landscape’s similarity to that of WV, except more blues, is really true. WV is wilder, too, but in many ways they’re reminiscent of each other. So that’s good!
Molly: Here’s this about the class:
It sounds as though it could yield interesting material for teaching, and be a good antidote for the heavy academic work.
Also, in reply to a query from me, the teacher read my blog and added that the class is very “grounding” and thus might be good for me!