Transitions

As life would have it, after not posting for several months, I lay down to sleep, my eyes close, and suddenly a post begins to nag at me. I have to sigh and write the thing if that little writerly voice in my head will ever let me get to sleep tonight.

Truth be told, this post has been brewing for a while, but I just now have thought of some particular ways to put things. I am not sure where I will end up here, but please forgive me if I become confusing.

Also, it is so nice to be writing something other than an analytical paper about a student.

As I was counting the omer tonight, it struck me that yesterday was 49 days to my wedding. Seven weeks until my own Shavuot, if you will--until Jughead's Hat and I stand under the Chuppah in our own, personal close moments with God, where we will begin to build our own little unit within the Jewish nation.

JH and I have had a long-ish engagement. I've had a long time to reflect on what was (and still is) happening to me, from before I met JH, to when we were dating, to now while we are engaged. And even within our engagement, there have been different stages. JH and I when we first became engaged were different than we are now, seven weeks from our wedding.

Before I was dating JH, I used to feel very frustrated. I felt like no one could ever really love me the way a boyfriend loves a girlfriend, the way a chatan loves a kallah, the way a husband loves a wife. I hardly ever got attention from boys (well, except for a few strange ones) and I did not really believe anyone I could ever love would ever love me back.

When I would look at engaged couples, I would think, "They're so lucky. Their life is set. They're going to have a beautiful wedding and then sail off into the sunny land of married people." I don't think I was alone in feeling that way.

What I realize now is that I (and I am certain many others) used to focus on all the externals of engagement and marriage. The bridal shower, the wedding, the attention, the beautiful gown, the attention from a boy, the walks, the dates, the romance. All these things are external. Even the idea of having a male person there for you and in love with you - that is wonderful and important (and don't say I didn't say so!), but it is only one aspect of the bigger picture.

What I used to not really see, and what I believe many people don't really think about (because they're so busy thinking about the other stuff), is the huge emotional transition from one way of life to another. The fearful wondering if you're really ready for everything marriage encompasses, emotionally, halachikly, and otherwise. The change in family dynamics by bringing in a new person to your tight family unit, as well as being the new person in your fiance's family.

More than ever, family has become a central focus in my life. My own family is growing, molding, and adapting, especially considering my brother got married earlier this year and already brought one (amazing) in-law into the family. And I have to learn to adapt into JH's family. We both have to figure out the balance of being part of two families, two sets of friends, two lives. It is wonderful, but it is hard. At times, I have cried over it. But you would never know that unless I told you.

People tend to think the stress of engagement comes from wedding planning. And some of it does. But a lot of it comes from this other stuff: the difficult, sometimes scary, transitions. The tugs of emotion that come with such huge change. There are transitions within our families and within ourselves. For me, the transition from unmarried to married will be the biggest transition of my life, bigger than transitioning to college or to grad school or to living in the Heights.

I cannot adequately explain what it feels like to go through these transitions. They're ones that probably are experienced differently by each person and each couple, and I believe they're only truly understood through personal experience.

There are 48 days left until my life changes forever. I'm so excited, but it is also so nerve-wracking. From the time I was born until now, I have been just Erachet, the oldest child of my family. Suddenly, I am going to become part of three families--the one I was born into, JH's, and JH and myself. It is wonderful, but it is also huge. And a huge responsibility.

I am so looking forward to being married to Jughead's Hat. I hope my post did not convey otherwise. But I did want to shed light on some of the struggles I, at least, have gone through (and am going through). Flowers, music, dresses, they are on my mind, but only when they come up. The transitions, for me, are the real challenge of engagement.

While The Teacher's Absent...

Things a substitute should not do:

1. Use how many years you've been a teacher as a threat or reason why kids should listen to you. Kids don't care how many years you've been a teacher. In fact, it's more fun to terrorize a seasoned teacher who in all her "30 years of teaching has never seen kids so noisy" (which I'm sure is also not at all true, she has definitely seen kids that noisy). What class wouldn't want to be the ones to set the record for noisiest kids in 30 years?

2. Ask the kids what their classroom routine is and then go with your own thing anyway. Kids need routine. In fact, the teachers want them to do the routine. It's part of their education--to learn how to do routines. And kids like routine, as much as they may not think they do. Besides, you don't want to end up having to deal with the kids who can't handle change in routine. But if you're really stuck on doing your own thing, then just do it. Don't dangle the classroom routine in front of the kids and then throw it away.

3. Wear a fanny pack to keep your markers in. Putting on the fanny pack is your first mistake. If you want to bring markers, keep them in your bag. And there are often several markers already by the board. You can use those. There's no need to keep your own personal set of markers out and use them possessively (while making the kids use only the markers on the board since the ones in your hand/fanny pack are only yours). Also, really, ditch the fanny pack.

4. Yell excessively at the kids/be too strict. Lighten up. You're a substitute, for crying out loud. The kids will only be worse if you make them dislike you.

What am I forgetting?

Never Around

Jughead put it perfectly.

I hate it when people tell me I'm never around. I know I'm never around. Believe me, I'm never around to spend time with myself, either. I'm never home, I'm never in the Heights, I'm never in Queens, I'm never anywhere. I never see anyone. I miss everything that goes on and always have to be filled in. And somehow, I'm always left feeling like it's my fault. I feel like every second I'm not at field work or class, I have to be extra social with everyone to make up for the times when I'm too busy to talk. But that means that whenever I try to spend a little time just with myself, I feel so incredibly guilty about it.

I'm trying as hard as I can to be everywhere, but somehow, the place I always end up being is on the subway. Well, at least the subway never tells me I'm never around anymore.

Spring Cal 2011

Last night in my apartment, we made an apartment calendar with everyone's general schedules on it so that we'd all have some idea of where each other are at any given time. It got me thinking about how crazy my schedule is going to be this semester.

Wake up: 6:00 AM

Leave apartment: 7:00 AM

Arrive at field work: 8:00 AM

Leave field work: 3:20

Mondays and Wednesdays:

Leave field work: 3:20

Arrive at Bank Street: 4:30ish

Class from 4:45 - 6:45

Arrive back at apartment: 7:30ish

(Five times this semester, I will also have a class from 7-9, when I will not return to my apartment until around 9:30, 9:45)

Tuesdays and Thursdays:

Leave field work: 3:20

Arrive at apartment: 4:30ish

I will also need to begin kallah classes at some point, which will be something else going on at night (to be added in later).

Sunday through Wednesday, I must make time to:

1. Do schoolwork

2. Plan lessons

3. Make lunch for the next day

4. Go to sleep by 9:30

5. Have a life?

THIS, by the way, is why I am never around. And this semester is even more intense than last semester. I can't be social because every night is a "school night" where I have only a few hours every evening to do what needs to get done and then go to bed early. I do miss college, where I actually had time to have friends. :( As soon as graduate school starts up again (um...tomorrow), I will not be able to see Jughead's Hat during the week either.

...Wake me up when it's June.

I Have Something To Tell You

...is what Jughead's Hat said to me on Saturday night as we walked into the building of his old high school to get the mp3 player he supposedly left there a few nights before.

"What?" I asked.

He didn't respond until we got into the elevator.

"I need the proper setting. I'm such a ham."

Those lines sounded so familiar, and he said them in this way that sounded like something was about to happen. I felt nervous and a little confused.

We left the elevator and walked into a pitch black auditorium.

"Now THIS is the proper setting!"

His voice rang against the empty hugeness of the room.

What...? My eyes started to slowly adjust to the darkness.

"...Is this from Singin' In The Rain?" I asked.

~~~

The scene (he actually recited the lines):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqsrVQfNYPc

The song (he sang to me!):

I can't express in words what I'm feeling right now. Jughead's Hat is the most amazing person and I'm incredibly lucky to be engaged to him. I can't wait to spend the rest of our lives together.

Though I Walk

For the past few weeks, the third grade class in which I was student teaching was preparing for a Mexican festival they were learning about called Day of the Dead. Day of the Dead takes place on November 1st and 2nd in Mexico and is when people honor and celebrate the lives of their family members who have passed away. Each student in my class picked an ancestor or someone in their family who had passed away to present to the class.

Included in the activity was to write some information about the person they were presenting and to bring in an artifact that reminds them of the people they picked. For instance, one girl brought in a chess piece because her grandfather was teaching her to play chess before he died. Another girl brought in a picture of her cousin. A boy brought in an old pasta maker that can also be played as a kind of banjo.

The class then came up with ideas for how they wanted to celebrate and honor the people they had picked to present. They worked hard creating games, writing songs, and doing arts and crafts projects to be part of their Day of the Dead ceremony, in the interest of filling the ceremony with the culture of their particular class, instead of taking on a culture of which they were not actually a part.

Two Sundays ago, I went to the hospital to visit my grandfather. It was hard for him to speak, but he spoke a lot. Among the things he told me was that he loved Psalm 23 and the Dveikus song that went with it, Gam Ki Elech:

Gam ki elech b'gai tzalmaves lo ira ra ki ata imadi--Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me;

In 1938, when my grandfather was eleven years old, he had to leave home forever. He left behind his parents, and after a few months he was separated from his sister, as well. From eleven onward, he walked through the valley of the shadow of death. But he remained good-natured, and he was intelligent. He served as a mentor for another boy in England during the war--and that was just the beginning. My grandfather mentored countless people throughout his life and spent his whole life fighting Hitler. He was truly unafraid. He went out to schools and other institutions and spoke passionately about the good in people and the fight we all have, as members of the human race, for the greater good.

My grandfather was also quite refined. He was a true European gentleman, despite having had a turbulent childhood and no formal education past the fourth grade. He was shy, but he was on a mission. Though he spoke with passion, his words were never harsh.

At his funeral on Thursday, November 4th, my brother read Psalm 23 (chaf gimmel). My grandfather's favorite Psalm was one that truly epitomized his life. His faith in the goodness of mankind persevered throughout all the evils that befell him. He somehow braved his way through World War Two, keeping his sanity and goodness in tact. He truly walked through the valley of the shadow of death, but was unafraid.

How fitting, then, that my father's last day sitting shiva was November 9th--the anniversary of Kristalnacht. Kristalnacht--the night that started my grandfather's terrible childhood journey.

Back in the hospital room that Sunday, I cried as my grandfather said we should think of him for a brief moment during upcoming family simchas. But though he won't be with us in person, I know he will be there all the same, together with his sister and his parents, my great-aunt and great-grandparents who never made it through the war, and who my grandfather spent his life trying to find information about.

And who would have ever thought, back in 1938 in Germany, when my grandfather ran over the border from his parents and his stable life into a world filled with war and confusion, that he would have an official American flag folding ceremony, with taps and all, at his funeral 72 years later? That he would have children and grandchildren living prosperously in America?

What will the world be like when we all have grandchildren?

When I returned to field work earlier this week, the third-graders were presenting the relatives they chose to honor for Day of the Dead. Though none of you will read this, 8-9s, this post is my presentation.

~~~

A Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd;

I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul:

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I will fear no evil:

For Thou art with me;

Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:

Thou annointest my head with oil;

My cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

~William Ernest Henley

My grandfather quoted the last two lines from this poem several times in the hospital on Sunday, which is the last time I visited him. "Invictus" is Latin for "undefeated." My grandfather, who survived the horrors of the Holocaust and made his way to England as a little boy without any family, who never went to school and yet became a powerful orator, and who has struggled with many things throughout his life, always kept his mind and wishes his own. He was always undefeated - always the master of his fate, the captain of his soul.

I will miss you, Saba.