They say that breaking up is hard to do / Now I know, I know that it's true
Don't say that this is the end / Instead of breaking up, I wish that we were making up again
~ "Breaking Up is Hard to Do," version by The Carpenters
--- Forgive me for a repost of a message I wrote on another site, but it fit in really well here!
(See "What series are you breaking up with this fall?" for the premise of this letter)
Dear Studio 60,
I tried to love you. I wanted to love you. But deep down, it's just because I was so in love with your older brother for seven years, and when he left me, I thought we could keep it all in the family. But you're trying too hard to be like him, and you don't have it in you.
I could excuse your superficiality -- after all, you're up front about it and make all those cute self-deprecating jokes. The thing is, self-deprecating only is cute and romantic when the other person knows you're better than your jokes make you seem. So far, you're exactly what you pretend not to think you are.
You even copy his ideas and try to live his life. That little problem you had with the judge in Nevada? He did it better when he bailed out the Supreme Court Justice-to-be and told me about it in flashbacks while addressing a student crowd. When you tell his stories, you look like a wannabe who can only draw in disposable cartoon strips what he painted in vivid detail. I'm supposed to believe your friend Jack got to be a network president while being stupid enough as to joke about buying the judge a boat with his American Express? Your buddy Harriet isn't anywhere near as good a defender of the faith as our gal Ainsley was of her politics, nor even as good as the Kristin C. Christian that Harriet would like to become one day.
Even your attempts at fast, witty dialogue just remind me how much better at this your brother was. I'd rather just gather all my home movies of him and watch them between my dates with "The Nine" and "Heroes" -- at least hanging out with them I hear intelligent stories about believably diverse people. (It's sad, isn't it, that stories about people with magic superpowers are more believable than yours?) I'm even experimenting with "Ugly Betty" these days... so we'll see you around.
P.S. Do stay sober, honey, because it'll still give you a much better chance of finding the right one for you next time around.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Saturday, September 30, 2006
A fluke?
You are a fluke
Of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not
The universe is laughing behind your back. ~"Deteriorata," National Lampoon
Wow, does this one ever capture how I'm feeling lately. All my life I have been a person of faith. Not just in the sense of being an adherent of one, but in the sense of being defined by the gift of believing, of being able to take huge steps on faith. An informed faith, yes, but still leaning more on the faith than on the information. This characteristic gave me some fantastic stories of times I stepped out in faith and received otherwise inexplicable results.
My graduate studies began as one of these. I was praying over what I should do next in life, and although the previous year's answer had been that I wasn't done yet with the work I was doing, that year I was getting the sense that it might be time to go back to school. The fellow I was involved with at the time was very into education and suggested I at least find out when the deadline was to apply to the out-of-state school I had in mind. Lo and behold, the deadline was just one week away. They had my GRE scores still on file — including that perfect 800 on the analytical subtest, which doesn't count toward the overall score but still makes me proud — so I dashed around getting letters of recommendation and writing my admissions essay between classes.
While filling out the paperwork, I indicated that I was applying to a master's program in public administration, but would like to know if the School of Education thought I'd be likely to be admitted (down the road, of course) to a doctoral program there at the end of my MPA. After all, if not, I might as well apply here in Texas, where they had excellent programs for both at UT-Austin. I also check-marked a little box that said, "Indicate here if you are interested in financial aid." I'd never qualified for much aid before, but I was appreciative of my parents' being willing to finance my going back to school so long after I'd finished undergrad, and would like to help.
All this hullabaloo was back in the days when being online tied up the phone, so Mom had to get online and IM me to tell me the news. She didn't even start out with any introductory words, simply typed in the first lines of the letter, "Dear Miss _____, We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to the Ph.D. program in Curriculum and Instruction at ________. ..."
I couldn't believe it. I hadn't even applied to that program, formally, and I telephoned the next day to make sure there was no misunderstanding. Did they not see that I didn't have a master's yet? The catalog indicated it was a requirement for the C&I program at that school. Yes, the director said, they knew, but there was a master's program within the School of Ed that I could do instead, and they were offering an $11,000 merit assistantship and a job supervising student teachers in my two fields, as well.
So let's tally that up, shall we? An inquiry that turned out to be just in time, success in gathering recommendation letters and writing a essay in a week when it takes others a month, admission to a doctoral program that normally didn't take bachelors-only students, and a massive scholarship for someone who merely checked a box. I should add at this point that I don't qualify for any kind of affirmative action in this case: I'm not an ethnic nor religious minority, I'm not the first in my family to go to grad school, I'm not poor, and I am a woman in a field that tends to overflow with them.
I'm not the kind of person who has stories like this for every week or every month or even every year. But I do have stories like this for various different major turning points in my life: my choice of college, my first big job after being RIFfed from my first major job, admission to grad school, and so forth.
But that was before ...
Of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not
The universe is laughing behind your back. ~"Deteriorata," National Lampoon
Wow, does this one ever capture how I'm feeling lately. All my life I have been a person of faith. Not just in the sense of being an adherent of one, but in the sense of being defined by the gift of believing, of being able to take huge steps on faith. An informed faith, yes, but still leaning more on the faith than on the information. This characteristic gave me some fantastic stories of times I stepped out in faith and received otherwise inexplicable results.
My graduate studies began as one of these. I was praying over what I should do next in life, and although the previous year's answer had been that I wasn't done yet with the work I was doing, that year I was getting the sense that it might be time to go back to school. The fellow I was involved with at the time was very into education and suggested I at least find out when the deadline was to apply to the out-of-state school I had in mind. Lo and behold, the deadline was just one week away. They had my GRE scores still on file — including that perfect 800 on the analytical subtest, which doesn't count toward the overall score but still makes me proud — so I dashed around getting letters of recommendation and writing my admissions essay between classes.
While filling out the paperwork, I indicated that I was applying to a master's program in public administration, but would like to know if the School of Education thought I'd be likely to be admitted (down the road, of course) to a doctoral program there at the end of my MPA. After all, if not, I might as well apply here in Texas, where they had excellent programs for both at UT-Austin. I also check-marked a little box that said, "Indicate here if you are interested in financial aid." I'd never qualified for much aid before, but I was appreciative of my parents' being willing to finance my going back to school so long after I'd finished undergrad, and would like to help.
All this hullabaloo was back in the days when being online tied up the phone, so Mom had to get online and IM me to tell me the news. She didn't even start out with any introductory words, simply typed in the first lines of the letter, "Dear Miss _____, We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to the Ph.D. program in Curriculum and Instruction at ________. ..."
I couldn't believe it. I hadn't even applied to that program, formally, and I telephoned the next day to make sure there was no misunderstanding. Did they not see that I didn't have a master's yet? The catalog indicated it was a requirement for the C&I program at that school. Yes, the director said, they knew, but there was a master's program within the School of Ed that I could do instead, and they were offering an $11,000 merit assistantship and a job supervising student teachers in my two fields, as well.
So let's tally that up, shall we? An inquiry that turned out to be just in time, success in gathering recommendation letters and writing a essay in a week when it takes others a month, admission to a doctoral program that normally didn't take bachelors-only students, and a massive scholarship for someone who merely checked a box. I should add at this point that I don't qualify for any kind of affirmative action in this case: I'm not an ethnic nor religious minority, I'm not the first in my family to go to grad school, I'm not poor, and I am a woman in a field that tends to overflow with them.
I'm not the kind of person who has stories like this for every week or every month or even every year. But I do have stories like this for various different major turning points in my life: my choice of college, my first big job after being RIFfed from my first major job, admission to grad school, and so forth.
But that was before ...
Sunday, September 10, 2006
The joy of bluebonnets in spring
I'm a bluebonnet girl
From my heart to my feet
and no springtime could ever be close to complete
until I have strolled through a bluebonnet field
and thrilled to the sound of the mockingbird's trill
~"Bluebonnet Girl," Bill & Bonnie Hearne
Just a photo from April, 2005, of one of the best parts of being back in Texas at long last. We went to the Hill Country to see my cousin and took loads of traditional bluebonnet pics. (I once pointed out to a friend that although some 95% of bluebonnet pictures also contain Indian paintbrush, they always say "bluebonnets" on the caption. He looked at numerous postcards during his sojourn in the state and said it held up just as I said.) I stupidly lay down among the flowers, which made for lovely pics, but also made for an emergency trip to Walgreen's to get every Benadryl product we could find when my hyperallergic immune system kicked into high gear...
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Africa
It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had
... Toto, 1983 (covered by UNC Clef Hangers, 1992)
Last Saturday, we volunteered to promote World Vision child sponsorship at a local Fourth of July festival, "Celebrate Freedom." It sounded like a great idea when I first signed us up, but as my lazy, pampered feet stomped across the hard and dusty ground to hunt for the booth, I was starting to regret the impulsive move.
We took a seat under the canopy and waited. Looking around, I could see that most of the child-information folders available that day were from India, China, and a variety of African countries, though it turned out there was also a map that showed all the countries with sponsorship programs. Soon the supervisor was going over the plan. As I'd expected, we aren't expected to go out and accost other people to try to sign them up. The emphasis is on getting the information into the hands of people who come to the booth, and also on making the organization's presence at the event highly visible so that people come check it out. Because it's so easy for people not to act on their good intentions, there's a focus on getting their child sponsorship started immediately.
One of the methods for doing this was offering CDs from recording artists that support World Vision, for those who begin their sponsorships that day, and also entry to a VIP tent on site for those who begin that day and use a credit card. (One of the factors that makes World Vision one of the most respected charities of its kind is the high percentage of funds that go directly to the kids and their communities, and using credit cards greatly reduces the amount of money that has to be spent on paperwork and processing.)
The young man directing activity in the booth confided that he found it "really depressing that we have to offer the VIP tent to convince people to sponsor a child." I felt for him. Once you know how desperate these kids' situation is and how much the organization helps them, once those of us who are fortunate compare our situation to those who are not ... it's hard to have compassion for those who don't share your passion. It was discouraging seeing people turn away after finding that the VIP tent's limited space meant they could only take one guest. But I told him to think of the incentives not so much as being to get people to sponsor at all, but rather to sponsor NOW. It's important to make the good-faith assumption that the people who respond to the incentive genuinely want to sponsor a kid, but would otherwise put it off to do another time.
One woman who showed up to look into sponsorship was clearly a stronger soul than I. Whereas I was internally fussing over how my feet hurt just walking down the quarter-mile dirt lane from the road up to the booth, this lady had decided to come from the other side of Dallas despite her ride falling through. So she took a train and then walked SEVEN MILES from the train stop, in the near 100-degree July heat, just to show up for the festival.
It was great fun helping people sign up. So many didn't have a country or type of child in mind and were overwhelmed by the hundreds of folders. While certainly any child they sponsor will be blessed by the assistance, when the sponsor wants to have a sense of connection, I try to suggest ideas: sponsor a child the same age as yours (or the same age as one special to you), or a child from a country you've visited or would like to visit someday. More than one person hesitated over signing up for the Phillippines purely because they weren't sure how to spell it! Naturally I reassured them that (a) no one could really care more about their spelling than about their willingness to help children and (b) with enough time as a sponsor, they'd surely learn the spelling over time.
People are so funny. There were teens signing up together, adults signing up because they'd "never had the means before" and were grateful to have it now. There were two little girls who got separated from their family and waited at our booth; they wanted to know if it was $1 per kid for the sponsored children. So I explained how it works. I encouraged people to go in together on a sponsorship; after all, that's how I started, sharing a sponsorship with my dad back in college.
Two days later, my feet still ache, but I'm so glad we went. ~July 9, 2006 - posted September
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had
... Toto, 1983 (covered by UNC Clef Hangers, 1992)
Last Saturday, we volunteered to promote World Vision child sponsorship at a local Fourth of July festival, "Celebrate Freedom." It sounded like a great idea when I first signed us up, but as my lazy, pampered feet stomped across the hard and dusty ground to hunt for the booth, I was starting to regret the impulsive move.
We took a seat under the canopy and waited. Looking around, I could see that most of the child-information folders available that day were from India, China, and a variety of African countries, though it turned out there was also a map that showed all the countries with sponsorship programs. Soon the supervisor was going over the plan. As I'd expected, we aren't expected to go out and accost other people to try to sign them up. The emphasis is on getting the information into the hands of people who come to the booth, and also on making the organization's presence at the event highly visible so that people come check it out. Because it's so easy for people not to act on their good intentions, there's a focus on getting their child sponsorship started immediately.
One of the methods for doing this was offering CDs from recording artists that support World Vision, for those who begin their sponsorships that day, and also entry to a VIP tent on site for those who begin that day and use a credit card. (One of the factors that makes World Vision one of the most respected charities of its kind is the high percentage of funds that go directly to the kids and their communities, and using credit cards greatly reduces the amount of money that has to be spent on paperwork and processing.)
The young man directing activity in the booth confided that he found it "really depressing that we have to offer the VIP tent to convince people to sponsor a child." I felt for him. Once you know how desperate these kids' situation is and how much the organization helps them, once those of us who are fortunate compare our situation to those who are not ... it's hard to have compassion for those who don't share your passion. It was discouraging seeing people turn away after finding that the VIP tent's limited space meant they could only take one guest. But I told him to think of the incentives not so much as being to get people to sponsor at all, but rather to sponsor NOW. It's important to make the good-faith assumption that the people who respond to the incentive genuinely want to sponsor a kid, but would otherwise put it off to do another time.
One woman who showed up to look into sponsorship was clearly a stronger soul than I. Whereas I was internally fussing over how my feet hurt just walking down the quarter-mile dirt lane from the road up to the booth, this lady had decided to come from the other side of Dallas despite her ride falling through. So she took a train and then walked SEVEN MILES from the train stop, in the near 100-degree July heat, just to show up for the festival.
It was great fun helping people sign up. So many didn't have a country or type of child in mind and were overwhelmed by the hundreds of folders. While certainly any child they sponsor will be blessed by the assistance, when the sponsor wants to have a sense of connection, I try to suggest ideas: sponsor a child the same age as yours (or the same age as one special to you), or a child from a country you've visited or would like to visit someday. More than one person hesitated over signing up for the Phillippines purely because they weren't sure how to spell it! Naturally I reassured them that (a) no one could really care more about their spelling than about their willingness to help children and (b) with enough time as a sponsor, they'd surely learn the spelling over time.
People are so funny. There were teens signing up together, adults signing up because they'd "never had the means before" and were grateful to have it now. There were two little girls who got separated from their family and waited at our booth; they wanted to know if it was $1 per kid for the sponsored children. So I explained how it works. I encouraged people to go in together on a sponsorship; after all, that's how I started, sharing a sponsorship with my dad back in college.
Two days later, my feet still ache, but I'm so glad we went. ~July 9, 2006 - posted September
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