In Which You Blow Inside The Game and It Suddenly Works

Because I secretly and not so secretly think that most people have really boring lives, I am not one to do much vicarious living. However, due to a severe lack of hand-eye coordination, I was never very good at video games. There were only a few games that I could take pride in. One was Jeopardy, in which I controversially triumphed over my parents in 7th grade. Another was Oregon Trail, which I believe operated off of DOS. Another was a game in which you had to steal gold from loin clothed Native Americans with hatchets. But my greatest victory was Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?, which I beat in an hour without using the internet. This triumph was marred by the fact that I was in my mid-twenties at the time.

My little brother, Ty, was much more gifted in that area and I still remember the beautiful day when we watched him finally defeat Super Mario Brothers 3. That stupid game was as riveting as watching T.G.I.F. and we would sit there, spellbound, for hours. I even remember researching cheats and guiding him. Although it is not the worst way that I spent time in the late 80s/early 90s (puff painting Keds comes to mind), I probably could have done something more productive with my time. These memories haunt me now, because my landlady's five-year-old son constantly wants me to watch him play MarioKart. My attention span for that game is approximately .000001 seconds and it kind of makes me nauseous. However, he constantly turns around to ensure that I am watching him and gets upset if I am not. He is a very skilled competitor and can beat sixth graders, but last night he drove into walls several times because he was watching me to see if I were watching him. I asked him if it was worth it and he said yes.

In Which the Feminist Revolution Missed a Spot

Tonight I started reading some research about generational trends and I decided that I wanted to get an book about it for my flight tomorrow. I told my mother that I was going to run to Barnes and Noble to get it. This is what ensued:

Mother: Ummm... do you realize that it is 8:00? You can't go by yourself. It is dangerous.* Where is your brother? He can take you.
Miss Jill: He is 17. He got his license 7 days ago.
Mother: Something will happen to you.
Miss Jill: I used to live in the country with the highest homicide rate in the world. I lived in Harlem. I am 30.
Mother: TROY! Come take your sister to Barnes and Noble.
Baby Troy (playing video game): Doesn't she live in third world countries and stuff?
Mother: She can't go alone. It is too late.
Miss Jill: Do you have any conception of what my life is actually like?
Mother: I don't want to think about that.
Miss Jill (defeated): Fine. Troy, I will buy you a milkshake if you come with me.
Baby Troy: I would rather have the $5 you would have spent on it.

* Barnes and Noble is not exactly in the hood.

The Reemergence of Camelot in Rural Idaho

Today my mom was looking at this picture of my cousin on Facebook (the stunning redhead on the left), doubled over in laughter.



She was laughing so hard that the only words that I could make out were "Kennedy Sisters."

Evidence for your review:

In Which Miss Jill Shares Hard Earned Economic Advice, Part V And This Time It Is Legal

My friend Bethany's dad, Bill, was born shortly after the depression and exhibits the corresponding economic style. In fact, he is known in many circles as "Dollar Bill." In these perilous economic times, there are a few lessons that we can learn from him.

* If you walk past a pay phone, always check to see if someone forgot to take their change. If you find a dime or two, jubilantly click your heels together.

* If you are on vacation with your large family in Europe and want to experience fine dining, mysteriously disappear for hours at a time and enjoy a five course meal by yourself. The kids wouldn't appreciate it anyway.

* Make sure that you carefully calculate the sales tax on everything you buy. If you would save money by making purchases separately, do so. Don't be fazed by the weird looks you get by going through the Arby's drive through four times to purchase four milkshakes. The two cents you save is worth it.

* Dollar Bill even brought his trademark frugality into his wedding proposal. While he was out to dinner with his lady love, he casually remarked, "We should think about getting married this year....I need to do something about these taxes."
She replied, "Is that a proposal? Where is my ring?"
He stammered, "Oh, you wanted one of those? I don't really care about those things."
Incredulously she said, "It's not for you! It's for me!"

They did not speak for two years. Luckily fate interceded and they reunited eventually.

In Which Miss Jill Explores the Devastating Impact of Dollicide

I can't remember if I have talked about this before, but I am a doll collector. Not the glassy eyed nightmare inspiring monstrosities that you might buy from Marie Osmond, but souvenir dolls from abroad. It started when my grandma gave me a doll from Argentina-I scored that day, because my little sister got a strange crocheted outfit-and it has mushroomed into a rather large collection. If I were not a nomad, I would proudly display it in my house.

When I was a senior in high school I went to London. Due to very limited adult supervision, this was one of the funnest weeks of my childhood. At some point in the trip, I fortuitously stumbled upon King Henry VIII and Wives dolls and quickly bought them all. I also have Queens Elizabeth and Victoria.

For reasons I cannot even begin to understand, my beloved dolls are universally scorned. I would say that Americans instinctively recoil when facing reminders of our rejected monarchist past, but the Will and Kate obsession would refute that. Personally, I can't imagine anything more horrible than millions of people watching my wedding, especially if they were scrutinizing me for a baby bump.

But anyway, the first tragic episode occurred when I came home from college. As I was walking up the stairs, I was met with a nefarious juxtaposition: In childish handwritten, a colorful sign declared, "Welcome Home Jill!" The words were surrounded by innocuous drawings in marker. Underneath, Catherine of Aragon swung gently from a noose.

I am a little fuzzy on the details of the next incident, so if you were a witness, please step forward. We had some kind of family argument, I can't remember if it was fake or not, but it quickly escalated. Before I could stop her, my sister let out an evil banshee scream and turned on the microwave. Anne of Cleves placidly revolved, unaware that she was slowly incinerating.

I like to think that somewhere in the great beyond, King Henry looked on with glee, knowing that my sister was happy to carry on where he left off.

Probably The Only Dating Related Post I Will Ever Write

Yesterday on the airplane, I read this book:



He said, "What if you are single, and hope to appeal to as many attractive potential dating partners as possible at an upcoming singles event? My advice would be to bring a friend who has your basic physical characteristics (similar coloring, body type, facial features), but is slightly less attractive (-you). Why? Because the folks you want to attract will have a hard time evaluating you with no comparables around. However, if you are compared with a "-you," the decoy friend will do a lot to make you look better, not just in comparison with the decoy but also in general, and in comparison with all the other people around."

When I thought about this, I realized that I only have one blonde friend in New York and she is definitely not -me. I have a history of being close friends with people who are way hotter than me (which probably makes me the -them), because I have no tolerance for low self-esteem whining. I would rather have a brazen egoist as a friend than someone who forlornly covets other women's beauty.

Case in point:
Once I was part of a conversation in which the aestetic virtues of a certain Costa Vida employee and my friend said with certainty, "Oh, that guy is in a committed relationship." I asked her how she was so certain since she had never spoken to him. She replied, "It is obvious. He has never checked me out."

Don't Worry If You Lose Your Purse With The Strength of the Youth Pamphlet In It...

I figured out a foolproof way to discern if you are dressed appropriately-simply take a stroll by the projects and listen for the reaction. The more appreciative the reception, the the more scandalous your outfit.* Maybe I learned this the hard way yesterday afternoon on the way to church. If some creep in a van stops driving to honk and wave, it is time to let the hem down.

I have seen a lot of lost purse blogs** from Mormons, but I want to do one too. If someone found my purse they would see:

* A Dianetics pamphlet someone gave me at Times Square.
* Evil eye bracelet-I get these as gifts a lot. Maybe I will actually wear one and see if my luck improves.
* Random lempiras. I left Honduras in 2007, but somehow the money is still following me. This reminds me of how I gave my brother, Baby Troy, some Honduran money because I thought he would think it was cool. He immediately asked my mother to drive him to Currency Exchange.
* Craisins from the Turkish store. I think I eat so many of these that I have become completely immune to UTIs.
* Bronzer-The only thing keeping people from mistaking me for Wednesday Addams. Once a stranger in Belize took one look at my legs and yelled, "That girl need some sun!" The problem is that when I get said sun, people then look at my legs and wince.
* The cheapest phone available at the T-Mobile store. Even if I were rich, the only way I would have an expensive phone is if someone else gave it to me. I feel the same way about cars. I doubt I will ever have a nicer car than a Corolla. What's the point?
* White board markers. I have to guard them with my life, because the students take them. Every time I find myself without one, at least one kid in the class pulls one out of their jacket pocket.

I don't know why I am writing this instead of packing, because I have to leave for the airport in one hour. My packing skills are the reason that I have 30 toothbrushes and had to buy a bathing suit at a Mexican WalMart. Bye

* This by no means implies that I think I am hot-the same thing would happen to any woman short of Rosie O'Donnell.
** A little background. Someone gave a Mormon speech about what they found in a virtuous girl's lost purse and it was stuff like a pamphlet about Mormon values, a recipe, soap and a list of favorite scriptures.

Republish: In Which Miss Jill Benefits From a First Class Catfight

I wrote this last year at Spring Break, but I am republishing it because it brings back beautiful memories.

I’m at the airport right now because I’m going to Chicago for Spring Break. My landlady/friend/secretary from school and I encountered various obstacles on the way to the airport, including an arduous showdown with the Korean dry cleaning woman, an Uzbek girl with a fist full of cash and hundreds of bottlenecking Brooklynites. It was a fiasco of international proportions.

When I finally got to the airport, they informed me that it was too late to board with my luggage. I asked if my luggage could take the next plane, but I was denied because the employee said that safety regulations required that it stay with me (??????) The last time that I missed a flight was in Managua when the rental car employees didn’t come to work, so we missed our flight while waiting to return the keys.

I waited sadly in line until I finally found myself facing an employee sporting neon blue eye decals. She shook her head as her acrylics gracefully tapped the computer keyboard. She eyed the tiny bag in my hand and said, “If you can move everything from your suitcase into your carryon bag, we can still get you on this flight.” My carry on was big enough to fit two books and my laptop. I am not a light packer. I stared at her incredulously as she slowly became enraged by my lack of cooperation. “If you don’t do it, you can’t go. “ “It’s impossible,” I replied. She sighed, “Someone else gots to be dealing with you, cuz it be break time.”

“Uhhhhh…”

“Maybe we can get you on at 4:45, but probably not. You can’t afford to go tomorrow, so it will have to be Monday.”

Although she was correct, I’m not sure how she could so confidently gauge my financial situation, especially since, like all of my arch nemesis, she was wearing drug store press on nails (not that I am above this-I recognized them for a reason-but at least I never choose the beach scene ones). She said something undecipherable and the employee next to her interjected, “That ain’t the airline policy.” What proceeded went something like this:
“How you be tellin’ me no airport policy. I have four years experience in the industry.”
“I have five. You don’t know nothing about nothing. You seen how I be treating the customers.”

Stands up and starts gesticulating wildly. “Excuse me? Don’t you be disrespecting me-that’s unprofessional, as far as I’s (not sure how to spell this) concerned.”
With rapidly increasing volume, “Don’t you be disrespecting me and my experience in the industry.”

“I be treating customers right, and it’s my break time. Nobody talks to me like this, believe me, nobody.”

I just wanted to go home and suddenly lost control and started crying from frustration. At this point in my life I only cry two or three times a year, so all of those pent up emotions can get rather loud. It must have been an illuminating scene for the passengers behind me: two out of three of the workers were engaged in a loud screaming match, as a mysterious, yet intriguing, blond woman was sobbing loudly. Another employee ran up and tried to break them up, to no avail. From time to time, one of them would turn to me and punctuate their argument with, “Now, don’t you be cryin’.” I tried futilely to stop, because I was pretty sure that I was about to see a deweaving ©, but I couldn’t.

The remaining worker, John I., paused from booking a last minute flight to Tel Aviv for two women in furs and gestured that I come over. He asked, “Aisle or window?”

“Window,” I wailed. “I’m sorry that I’m hysterical.”

“They shouldn’t be yelling like that. Here is your ticket.” I glanced down. 2D, First Class.

Followup: I also got 2500 miles and a free trip to Seattle.

Does anyone know if the movie "Cipher in the Snow" is online somewhere? Don't ask.

In Which Miss Jill Realizes That Her Destructive Teenage Students Are Actually Nascent Artists

Through some strange twists of fate, I have somehow recently become a regular on the New York City art show scene. It has only driven home the point that I dress like a spinster school marm and do not have my hand on the pulse of the newest trends in pop culture. Nothing will ever hamper my lifelong lover affair with the creepy religious icons of yesteryear.

This would be in my house:



Way before this:



But I'm starting to think these art shows are really fun. My friend Jess was featured in an art show on Thursday and she was surprised to see her contribution hanging between the bathroom and a huge hole in the wall:



The blow was softened, so to speak, when we realized that the hole was actually a manifestation of artistic expression. While I was waiting to use the bathroom, I saw a woman earnestly videotaping it.

When Big Brother Is You

As a teacher, I am the movie Gestapo. We watch Spanish movies once in a while and I am awesome at fast forwarding. The seniors from last year hated it and turned it into a verb-like if my last name were Smith, it would be Smithing a movie. At times I can successfully fast-forward a single curse word. However, the students often write down the names of the movies to watch uncensored at home. Not my problem.

Miss Jill circa the '80s also bristled under a similar suppression of intellectual freedom. When I was little, my mother always fast-forwarded a murder in the movie "Oliver." Fantasizing over what happened in those lost minutes drove me to distraction. I bided my time for months. Then, one day when she was doing laundry in the garage, I saw my opportunity. I quickly put the movie in the VCR and found the forbidden spot. What a letdown. What kind of gore do you think is in a movie from 1948?

Now let's travel a few years forward into the early '90s. I was twelve or thirteen and I was an ardent devotee of Teen magazine. I eagerly devoured every sentence, even the advertisements, of each issue. So I noticed when there was a page missing one month. I quickly turned to the Table of Contents and matched up the page number: "Ten Things You Should Know About S#x." Nice try, Mom. I promptly went to the public library and read the missing page. Letdown #2.

In Which Espousing Multiculturalism/Pluralism Does Not Have To Mean Vilifying Yourself

This is not a post about government systems, it is a post about culture.

I think that it is intellectually lazy to constantly hate on the United States and Western civilization. I will briefly quote myself: " I am all about thinking critically about everything, but I have heard rich Upper West Side residents sing the praises of socialist dictators on several occasions. We need to deport all of these people to the streets of Havana. As soon as they notice the dearth of vegan organic food, they will start to construct rafts."

The thing that annoys me the most about it is that people always think that they are so avant-garde when they are actually parroting the sentiments of thousands of New Yorkers. There are a few reasons that this annoys me so much:

1. Every culture/civilization has its strengths and weaknesses. This is especially clear to me as I have spent several years of my life in pretty intense cultural immersion experiences; I actually currently work in one. I can even see culture based differences in my parents (my dad grew up in Mexico City). Most of these differences are morally neutral. For example, I didn't know this until later, but one of my Turkish friends was secretly harboring resentment towards me for texting her questions or comments without saying good morning or inquiring about her well-being first. Although, I've noticed that a lot of men will just text stuff like "k," so at least I didn't do that. When she told me that, I adjusted, but I don't think that either of us was right or wrong.

2. Stereotyping ourselves is potentially very dangerous. I think the WORST myth of all time is that Americans don't love their families or that we don't have strong familial bonds. I have heard this one from people from various cultures, including my own. I have been an American for 30 years and I can only think of one person who hates their family and I am pretty sure that that individual has a personality disorder. My views are probably shaped a little bit by my religious background, but I have been a teacher in three cultures (Turkish, American and Honduran) and there really are very few people who don't care about their children. There are a LOT of bad parents, which is how you end up being begged, as a single 23-year-old, for parenting advice. However, most of these people still love their children, even career drug traffickers.

The reason I think that this is dangerous is somewhat political. Family relationships and love are such a fundamental part of humanity that an easy way to demonize a group of people is to say that they are so cold that they are immune to even those basic emotions. It is dehumanizing. It is as unfair as people thinking that Muslims are building mosques in the United States as headquarters for terrorist attacks. It is all stupid and harmful. Most people love their families and don't wish harm to anyone else. Most of us are just caught in the middle of conflicts we did not create.

3. Just because the American education system has issues, does not mean we are all stupid. The United States is home to 20 percent of the world's immigrants (per my beloved Wikipedia) and millions upon millions of ESL students take our standardized exams, which are then used to rank us against other industrialized countries. Come on.

Blah, sorry for the rant. If I am missing an angle on this, please enlighten me, because I don't have all the answers.

P.S. Sorry if this is offensive somehow, I am better at telling weird stories than expressing serious ideas.

In Which Miss Jill's Worlds Irrevocably Collide

Sometimes it is hard to keep class fun, so I try to mix thing up with music videos. I randomly found this one and thought that the kids would think that it was really cheesy, because adolescent guys were trying to look sexy:



After it played for a few seconds in eleventh grade, I noticed that the girls started to stare at the screen with somewhat strange, carnivorous expressions. When it ended, one girl gasped, "Please, again!" After the bell rang, another girl approached me and said solemnly, "Miss, I would like to thank you for giving us Manitu." I had never seen them in such a state of bliss and realized that it was because I always show videos by people my age or older. Ummm... so maybe what I like is not very hip.

The next day, most of the girls in the high school section had the full collection of Manitu on their ipods (which isn't hard because they only have a few songs) and told me several facts they had learned about the band online. I looked them up myself and was stunned to see on Wikipedia: "The eldest brother, Lex, left the group for two years while they were recording their first album to provide volunteer missionary service in Mesa, Arizona."

Does anyone have more information on this?

In Which There Is More Of a Connection Between Turkey and That Thanksgiving Feeling Than a Bird

If you take nothing else from reading this blog I would like you to take to heart this piece of advice: when you are invited to anything involving Turkish people, do not eat anything else that day. They have this magical ability to whip up a buffet of food at a moment's notice, regardless of the circumstances. For example, if you are at a friend's house and get distracted for a second and look out the window, when you turn around again, it is very likely that this will have appeared on the table:



Yesterday I went to my Turkish coworker's house and her mother-in-law was visiting. When I arrived, she (the M.I.L.) was busy preparing a feast. After she saw me, her face lit up and she embarked on an effusive monologue. I finally caught one word that sounded like "American" and I proudly responded with "Ben Amerikaliyim (I am American)." Unfortunately, that is one of the only things I can say in Turkish after all this time-I became demoralized when I realized that I could not pronounce most of the vowels. She kept talking and I turned to my coworker and implored, "SUBTITLES!" She translated, "She says that she is so happy because you are the first American she has seen (this is a "You Know You Are In South Brooklyn post waiting to happen, because it was the third week of the trip) and she thinks that you will be able to learn Turkish soon. She also said that she is making you lots of food."

Of course, this made for a lovely evening. Also, I have never seen teenagers who are so willing to share food with each other-I am kind of glad that the sunflower seed fad has ended because at times the seed extracting process did not engender an optimal learning environment. This is a weird segue, but last year one of the students bought a whoopie cushion like device at Family Dollar, which I found out about when she continually set it off at a restaurant. I ascertained what was happening quickly, because I am good at detecting the slight variations in posture that occur when a teen is trying to hide something in his/her hand. I developed this ability by watching vigilantly for texting in class.

When I asked what she was doing, she proudly displayed the device and begged me not to tell the other teachers about it. Then she added proudly, "I had this in the dorms and I kept setting it off. Everyone looked around, but no one wanted to say anything. I was so happy because they seemed to be very uncomfortable. Then one of the girls left. She came back later with a special kind of tea and told me, 'I just called my mother and she said that this will help you with your problem.'"

In Which Miss Jill Makes a Simple Request After Selflessly Entertaining You

Hey everyone! Could you please take a second and vote for my friend Josh in the YogaJournal Talent Search. We met in 1997, so you know I mean business. You know you wish you could get your body to do that.

Thanksssssssss

I remember when I was a freshman in college, Time Magazine had an online contest for most influential person of the millennium, (yes I was already in college at the turn of the century). At some point, the website crashed and suddenly my teenage cousin Brady was at the top of the list. There is not a lot of productive activity happening in freshman dorms, so I dutifully pushed refresh and repeatedly voted. I believe he was even number one for a few glorious hours. Unfortunately, Time worked out the bug and things were back to normal the next day. I can't understand how Guttenberg edged out a sixteen-year-old ska lover from Boise, but he handled the loss with aplomb.

In Which Santa is a Bad Representative of Christianity

I think sometimes we take ubiquitous cultural symbols for granted. Back at the beginning of December, there was a day in New York when hundreds of people celebrated the start of the Christmas season by donning Santa costumes and getting wasted on the streets of Manhattan.



Picture from Huntington Post

Side note: I have no idea why, but people wearing Santa hats fills me with revulsion. I hate it, even when if the person in question is a baby in a photograph. This was not a great day for me.

That Monday, I had the following conversation:

Student: Something very weird happened to us this weekend. We were trying to go to the Apple store, but we didn't know where it was. I see this man, he is wearing red, he is a Christmas man, I do not remember the name...

Miss Jill: Santa?

Student: Yes, he is Santa. I think, this will be nice man, he gives toys. So I ask him how to get to Apple store.

Miss Jill: Did he tell you?

Student: Yes, he told us, but he said a curse, the f word, and then started smoking. I did not know he was like that.