8 Million Random Strangers

Shining Stars of the American Public School System

2012-01-24T04:08:00.000-08:00

One of the good/bad things about being a teacher is the potential that you have to send a little piece of yourself into the future. Everyone remembers their influential teachers, especially the super eccentric ones. Sometimes I get nervous about the weird stories that could be circulating in Turkey/Honduras/throughout the U.S. regarding a certain batty blonde woman, but it doesn't really impede me from saying really weird stuff to keep myself entertained all day.

I asked my friends to share their most memorable experiences with me and the following are the sometimes horrifying results. If you gave me one on gchat and I forgot to cut and paste it, my most sincere apologies.

* I didn't have her but there was an English teacher at my high school who had a psychotic episode and truly believed that she was Scarlett O'Hara. She showed up at school wearing a hoop skirt and gargling perfume, although that may have been partly to mask the scent of other liquids she'd previously imbibed. Ed. note: I think this is my favorite one.

* Her make-up was tattooed to her face in a way that made her look elated when she was off-put and her zeal for sex scenes kept us focused on very small windows of Shakespeare's collected works.

* A 60-something who dates much younger men, only wears clothes from the thrift store, cuts her hair in the work bathroom, will say the opposite of whatever someone else says, hates all people (but will defend subs to the death for some reason), loves animals and regularly eats herring and odd items (eg a potato) found in her purse.

* The Gilderoy Lockhart of Behavioral Psychology. He would tell crazy stories about solving all the problems of mass quantities of boys with autism simply by using string or something.

* One of my crazier professors suggested (during the DC sniper rampage) that all people in the greater DC area wear a target on their back to show solidarity.

* I had a "diversity class" professor who constantly referenced her children in class and referred to them as her "brown children". She was obviously very proud of herself for marrying a hispanic and producing "brown children". She was very white, and living in Provo. I guess you cling to what you've got.

* A political science professor, offending at least half the class per semester, Brother ___ would spit through his floppy dentures how women shouldn’t leave the home or gain an education. Ed. note: I think that we can all infer that this incident did not take place at UC Berkeley.

* Another high school teacher who I didn't have was an Iranian political refugee who taught physics and shocked students who fell asleep in class with a cattle prod. After being informed that that wasn't acceptable he switched to pelting snoozers with tennis balls as hard as he could, he kept a pretty alert group of students in his room.

* White shirt, black bra, liked to lean in and say how she liked women who wore red lipstick - her voice was incredibly high pitched and she looked a lot like kung fu panda.

* Mr. E. (we called him "Lloydski" since his name was Lloyd) was straight out of the 70s with an alcohol-induced red face, gold chain, and curly graying chest hair...for any class party when the sign-ups went around he always thought it was hilarious that someone would sign him up to bring Kahlua and coffee since we were pretty sure that was what he was drinking all day long. Oh, and did I mention he was an aspiring actor and in his 60s was an extra working as a "peasant" on Titanic? Apparently you can catch a glimpse of him in the opening scenes when they are loading the boat.

* He took me skydiving and when I landed, he ran over to hug me and squeezed my butt with both hands. Ed. note: More information, please

* I had my first semester Humanities professor at BYU tell me personally that the only teachers that were good ones were members of the church, and all the others were useless.

* The male Shakespeare professor who wore all the gaudy rings seemed really on edge all the time.

* I loved my tenth grade English teacher, who wrote and sang ballads that helped us memorize the rules of grammar. DO re Action to the tune of Do Re Mi (direct object receives the action of the sentence). IO re DO (EIEIO), etc.

* My freshman HS Geography teacher taught us how to spell the 50 states. And we were quizzed. When my mom complained to him about this at parent teacher conf, he told her that he was too busy managing the football team and she needed to understand priorities. Every parent teacher night after he would ask me if my mom was planning on coming so he could "prep."

* My HS math teacher's fave endearing term for his students was "perverts." When asking us questions he would say "which one of you perverts knows the answer??" He was also a Bishop at the time.

* Miss H., the worst 1st grade teacher ever, who couldn't understand why 5-6 year olds didn't have the attention span of adults and was constantly yelling. I remember her having us stand next to our desks silently during an entire lunch recess while she talked on her phone to her friend about how annoying we were. She was maybe 22. Most parents tried moving kids out of her class but after 10 kids moved out, they wouldn't let anyone else out

* A football coach teacher who would use all his might to slap students desks with a yard stick during tests to "ease the tension in the room"

* In college I had a teacher (with whom i had zero relationship on any kind of personal level) who blew a huge misunderstanding out of proportion and ended up staging a confrontation with me which turned out to be a therapy session for her, with me as her impromptu and involuntary therapist. All I know is I sat there the entire time feeling like i was in an alternate universe or maybe Totally Hidden Video and the therapy session ended with me apologizing again and asking her what she wanted me to do and she sat quietly weeping, shook her head and said "nothing."

* And finally, a response in the form of a poem:
wore bike helmet to class, so excited
about particle physics
he forgot to take it off.

office a stack of papers ten feet
with a two foot circle in the middle
just large enough for a brain and chair

died his shirt tie-dye to hide a ketchup stain
believed in mars
and the colonization thereof.

My Life As A Carny: Part Two

2012-01-23T11:28:00.001-08:00

I know that I have discussed my freakishly small feet before, but I think that this picture sums it up pretty well:

Let me know if you have any tips on where to buy size 5 shoes. I am starting to come to grips with the fact that stuffing size 6 so that they fit me is giving me a strange gait.

Toward the Peaceful Coexistence of Introverts and Extroverts

2012-01-15T09:04:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am not even a little shy or introverted. In fact, I realized recently that spending too much time alone turns me into a nihilist (and probably also the gloomy month of January). I almost always know what to say and I don't ever get tongue tied. And I usually have pretty good comebacks, which has proven to be a professional asset.

I have been surprised in recent years to realize that not everyone feels the same way. One of my friends told me once that she experienced social anxiety before she hung out with me for the first time and I was shocked. Understanding that everyone isn't instantly effusive has really helped me not to have hurt feelings so easily. It is hard for me to imagine that someone wouldn't talk to me because of shyness, but I'm sure that it happens sometimes.

Thanks to Bridget of Arabia for posting Socially Awkward Penguin. It really made me think about my own social awkwardness.

Socially Awkward Miss Jill

* Post something on my blog, think of it two hours later and then start to stress that it is too offensive. I am usually driving or on public transportation at the time, so nothing can be done.

* I make friends in weird places, so I am frequently invited to events where I only know the host. This is one of the only things that gives me social anxiety, because you know that the host doesn't want to babysit you and you will be stuck having awkward convos with strangers.

* Sometimes I get too keyed up to eat (obviously not that often) in social situations and people think that I don't like the food.

* Laugh at my own jokes and stories, way too loudly.

* Tell too many weird stories in a row so that I sound like a pathological liar. Even I listen to myself and think, "How could all of this happen to one person?"

* Constantly check to see if I texted/e-mailed the wrong person (because I have done this)

* I am usually too self-conscious to make comments in classes or discussion groups, which always surprises people.

* Check my phone for pocket dialing before I start to talk about something personal.

* Remember random things about people for decades so that I look like a stalker.

* Talk to myself.

* I will admit that there have been times that I pretended not to see people on public transportation.

I will examine my own behavior today and see if I can come up with some more.

In Which the Latest Parisian Trends Hit the Defensive Line

2012-01-15T03:51:00.000-08:00

Ok, I try not to blog about work, but this one can't be helped.

One of my students is a colossal football player who happened to have a birthday on Wednesday. He celebrated the day by not attending school. When he came into class on Thursday, the first thing that he said was, "Ain't you going to wish me a happy belated birthday?" I complied and asked, "So, what did you do yesterday instead of going to school?" He replied, "I went to the mall, went out to eat, went to the spa..."

"Ok, wait a minute. Please give me more information about the statement 'I went to the spa.'"

"I got my nails fixed. A manicure and pedicure. My mom don't like me to look raggedy."

"Please show me your hands."

Imagine Shaq thrusting his hands into your face. Then imagine that his nails were filed into perfect ovals and painted pink.

A few hours later I had study hall duty with another teacher. When he came in, I immediately asked him to interrogate the student about what he had done for his birthday.

A few boys started mocking him immediately. "He went to the spa! He gay!."

For a second I thought that I would have to intervene, but he responded confidently, "No I ain't. I just like to look good. All the men in Europe is doin' it."

In Which the Heckler and the Victim are Irrevocably Linked

2012-01-12T02:48:00.000-08:00

I would like to point out that every time I say something slightly humorous about Utah, I lose several Google Reader subscribers. However, when I dedicated a whole post to making fun of California, no one unsubscribed and several Californians left affirming comments. What can we learn from this?

When I was in a BYU ward, I had to give the Sister Spotlight every Sunday in Relief Society*. I did copious research and came up with some pretty good gossip-one that stands out to me is that one of the girls had sustained a gun shot wound to the buttocks. I usually would tell a story or read some clues and then everyone would have to guess who it was, then I would give them a personalized gift. Once there were some visitors who remarked that they wanted to move into our ward after I gave a girl a guitar, not realizing that I had broken into her house during Sunday School and taken it from her bedroom. Like every high profile ward member, I was a polarizing figure. Many girls told me that Sister Spotlight was the only reason that they went to Relief Society, but I do remember someone saying, right after I was finished, "And now I will give the lesson on reverence, in complete contrast to what just happened."

One Sunday I launched into a particularly juicy Sister Spotlight. I can't even remember exactly what I said, but I laid out tons of salacious details. The girl had once had a death crush on a guy who was too skinny to donate blood. Her retainer fell on another guy's head at an ice skating rink. Some people chuckled nervously, others looked really uncomfortable. Later, the Relief Society President told me, "I thought, 'This time, she's gone too far. I have to stop this!'" However, before she could act, one of my friends realized what was happening and yelled, "You are spotlighting yourself!" Everyone started laughing, relieved.

I was at a party a year later and a girl came up to me and said, "This is going to sound really weird, but I think that I recognize you. I might have visited your ward with my ex-boyfriend. Are you the Sister Spotlight girl?"

* Mormon women's organization.

Dominican Decade Anniversary or In Which I Sadly Realize That I Used To Be Super Fun

2012-01-11T02:08:00.000-08:00

I just remembered that it is the tenth anniversary of my study abroad in the Dominican Republic. I was kind of horrified when I realized that my passport had expired and that I had obtained it as an adult. I lost the previous one in London and they still let me back into the United States without it (1999). I've written about the D.R. before, so hopefully this is not too repetitive.

Highlights

* I lived with an alcohol/drug abusing family that didn't give me any food on the weekends when the maid went back to the countryside. I kind of wish that it would happen again, because it was better than Weight Watchers. Once they pressured me into eating liver, because they wanted to enjoy the face of revulsion that I would inevitably make. They kept joyfully exclaiming, "Gringos hate liver!" I also recall several incidents of the dad prancing around the house in tighty whities. Worst host family ever!

* Everyone who went to the salon got the Rachel. Somehow, I decided that it was appropriate to wear the same shades of eyeshadow as the locals, who may or may not have been of a slightly darker skin tone. When I returned, my brothers kept calling me Mimi until I learned my lesson.

* My professor's son fell asleep on the bus and I succeeded in applying a full face of makeup before he woke up.

* Somehow I collected this rank posse of street dogs that followed me to school every day. It expanded even more when one of the dogs randomly dropped a litter. I wish this wasn't before digital cameras, because the pics of it are hilarious.

* Getting into Havana at night and thinking that it was really swanky, then waking up to see peeling paint and a general state of disrepair.

* When I depanced another girl at the airport. Mixed reactions from locals.

* Always wanting to try the bidet in the bathroom, but always succumbing to the fear that I would break it.

* Swimming at a local luxury hotel because the owners thought that it looked posh to have Americans in their pool.

* In Cuba, a guy screamed, "Too much McDonalds!" at a group of us. For days, everyone nervously wondered who he was referring to and how he knew about McDonalds.

* My host mother's 19 inch waist and 57 inch booty.

* One of my neighbors was this massive adolescent everyone called "La Grandota." The kid at my house told me that she came from New York after 9-11 and didn't even know the days of the week in Spanish, so I went to investigate. Somehow this scenario ended up with us giving La Grandota a makeover in my bedroom.

* Our tour guide was a chain smoker named Oscar who told us that there was a city where girls turned into boys (or something like that???). He took some pictures of the group and somehow most of them had a panoramic view of a girl's butt (I will keep her identity secret as she is now a mild mannered housewife).

* NUDE EUROS EVERYWHERE

* Holy War over going out to eat on Sunday in San Juan.

* A group I dubbed, "The girls who talk about love," because they always sat around saying dreamy stuff like, "It's all about the way he treats you... " sigh

* The night when we had a private island and people started skinny dipping while our professor peacefully slumbered. The next day was the only time that I did not take a shower, ever.

* Everyone who was getting it on with Dominicans, Cubans or Colombians. I wish that I had had the foresight to do some discreet camera work, because I'm pretty sure that I could have become a millionaire off "Girls Gone Wild: BYU Study Abroad."

* I have a distant memory of leading games of truth or dare, but I am having a difficult time remembering. Maybe someone can help me out.

* Pretending to be communists in a hotel in Havana.

* Eating Cheetoes, just like I ate french fries in Honduras. I never eat either of those foods in the U.S., but for some reason I get hit by culinary homesickness.

* A lady b-slapping my friend in Haiti when she refused to buy cans of American aid food.

* The fact that I am still friends with a majority of the people in my group. Let's face it, you have to be kind of off to pick that study abroad option in the first place.

I have really fond memories of that period of my life, because I was still really idealistic. I had no reason not to be. I'm not sure which person I would rather be, but I suppose that you can't get away with depancing someone at age 30.

Miss Jill's Compendium of Turn-on Triggers

2012-01-09T05:50:00.000-08:00

The other day my friend told me that she met a guy at a YSA conference and she was instantly smitten, because he used the word "reconnoiter."

That gave me the idea to poll some women and to compile a list of people's split second turn ons. For me, I could only think of asking questions, showing interest in my life and offering to help women with heavy luggage (I have spent too much time on subways). Ok, I have been attracted to unibrows in the past, but I seem to be over that. Quite a few of my respondents are already married and one asked that I not share the list with her husband, because none of them applied to him.

FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT READ CAREFULLY, THESE ARE NOT MY RESPONSES. SORRY IF YOU SAID THAT CANNING IS SEXY, BUT I DON'T WANT THAT ATTRIBUTED TO ME

Winner: Attraction to clowns.

Multiple people responded with: Recycling, sense of humor, beards ed. note: gross!, foreign accents (especially British), knowing how to fix a car, pays for you

Highlights:

"My friend helped a woman over some bikes on a bus to make sure she had a seat and I wanted to make out with him RIGHT THEN."

"He started going off on libertarians at dinner and that's when I knew that I wanted to have his baby."

"You know how some people marry for money? I would marry for building skills."

"Argyle sweaters. I gave my brother one for Christmas so he would attract my type of girl."

"Well as for me, I love the nerd. Kind of odd, super intelligent. In the beginning, I liked husband's name because he was really witty and seemed to have zero interest in me. This may imply that typically every guy was into me but it's just not true. But he is the opposite of a player."

"Canning is really sexy. As is bike riding. Not road biking necessarily, but someone who uses a bike to get around." ed. note: I hate people on bikes in cities. They give me road rage

Molly Mormon Answers
Will sit in the front row of church
Giving blessings is sexy. Nothing beats a guy who is worthy to give a blessing.

Miscellaneous

If the person is in a street theater troupe (same person who likes clowns)
Having a job/financially independent (bonus if it's manual labor, food service a close second) ed. note: please make sure that you noticed that this said food service
Nice to people with disabilities
Brings me berries
Give up seat for random woman on metro/anywhere else
Likes opera
Flannel button downs
Jewish comedians
Windsor knots
Tallness
Smelling good and manly
Putting your hand on my back when i walk through a door.
Putting your hands on my face while we're kissing.
Knowing how to cook
Maintaining an orderly filing system
Aqua di gio
Playing the drums
Correct use of your/you're, etc.
Capable hands
Dancing skills ed. note: this is actually a turn off for me
Tips well
Having left the US or travelled
Taste in music

Thanks to everyone who responded to my survey! Please feel free to add anything.

Calithority

2012-01-08T16:44:00.000-08:00

If life circumstances pushed me to live in California, I would be very, very happy. I like the west coast. However, I cannot tell you how many times I have heard someone say, "Well, I'm from California, so fill in the blank with an authoritative opinion.

I don't even know what I could say with geographic certainty. I'm from Chicago, so I know how to register dead people to vote? I'm from Chicago, so I know how to get an illegal drivers license?

Things that people from California think that they are experts on:*

1. Earthquakes- All I have to say is that if Miami got hit by a tornado, I wouldn't try to go all Midwesterner on their expletive deleted. and say that it was no big deal.

2. Traffic-I thought it was interesting to note that my hometown and my current city both beat SoCal, although I have never given someone a lecture about traffic.

The top 10 cities for traffic delays in 2009:

1st - (tie) Chicago, Washington, D.C. – 70 hours
3rd - Southern California – 63 hours
4th - Houston – 58 hours
5th - San Francisco-Oakland – 49 hours
6th - (tie) Dallas-Fort Worth, Boston – 48 hours
8th - Atlanta, Seattle – 44 hours
10th - New York- Newark – 42 hours

3. Having good weather-I concede.

4. Mexican food-I can't tell you how many times I have heard people say, "There is no good Mexican food in this city. I am from California, I would know." Yeah, one of my parents is actually from Mexico and I would never call myself an expert. I think that the only place I have ever lived with absolutely NO good Mexican food was Honduras, because they always mixed their nasty cheese into everything. Just go somewhere that looks like it is due for a city sanitation department bust and you should be good.

5. Wearing flip flops in the middle of January when it is snowing-Maybe this is just a BYU thing? Also, wearing board shorts/booty shorts to places that it is inappropriate.

6. Electing actors as governor-I had a long standing crush on Reagan as a child, so this isn't a d-i-s-s-. It keeps autocorrection to "ids," so I had to write it like that.

It is 9:15, good night.

* This is all based on my personal interactions. I have no idea if these are universal.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2012-01-06T07:25:00.000-08:00

Have these people even read Les Miserables? What's next? Sir Anthony Hopkins on Hangover 3?

The Beijingish Nightingale

2012-01-04T11:41:00.000-08:00

Don't close your eyes, because you might get confused and think that you are at Sea World at a dolphin show. As someone who hit the apex of her piano talent in 1998, I was so impressed that this little girl can even turn her own pages:

My grandma was an opera singer who allegedly belted out tunes while in labor. Before she died, she made a CD with her greatest hits and gave it to everyone in the family. I listen to it in the car all the time, because I still miss her. However, I was a little bit surprised that someone turned the Gettysburg Address into an aria for mezzo-soprano (track 2).

My House On New Year's Eve At 6:40 P.M.

2011-12-31T16:39:00.000-08:00

Not the most flattering pics, but none of them read my blog (it is not a Louis L'amour or book about a coach). I wish that I could add audio of the chorus of snoring.

La Fiesta de Baby Troy

2011-12-31T15:35:00.000-08:00

All week my mother has been trying to get us to play games with her and every time she asks, everyone just stares into space and pretends like it isn't happening. Sometimes my sister-in-law misunderstands and accidentally answers her. After several days of frustration, she announced that tonight we are having a birthday party for Baby Troy. The party includes playing multiple games and eating an ice cream cake that has been in the freezer since his actual birthday on December 6. Baby Troy's response to the plan was, "You know that we have the best time as a family when we go on laptops and hang out in separate rooms."

2011 Recap/First and Last Emo Post of My Life

2011-12-30T02:57:00.000-08:00

Sorry, we are going to the airport so I can't proofread this.

One of my great joys in life comes from scrolling down my Facebook newsfeed on December 31 and reading fifty times, "Fill in the blank year sucked! Welcome 20...This is my year!" I am going to go out on a limb and say that the worst thing that happened to some of those people is not dating.

Noteworthy Events of 2011

My Favorite Movies

Sorry to all of you who are disappointed in me for watching R-rated movies, but at least I am not singing the praises of The Hangover. All of my sinning is educational.

Of Gods and Men

Incendies

I wrote a blogpost about how traumatizing this movie was here. Yes, there is a typo on the word "soothe," but I am too lazy to go in there and fix it. I'm sure if you are a regular reader, you have seen your share of typos.

And the only movie that has ever had me leaning forward, on the edge of my seat:

Too bad I had to keep telling the man next to me to stop loudly translating the movie into Chinese for his girlfriend. I would love to know how he translated "Hufflepuff."

Moved To DC Against My Will

I am one of the most decisive people I have ever met, but that is because I usually get pretty clear divine guidance. The Holy Ghost has told me to do some pretty weird things, like move to Honduras or quit my job in a scathing e-mail, but it has worked out enough that I just do it. In August I got the feeling to apply to schools in DC and the feeling was confirmed when I got a job the same week.

To be honest, I was kind of horrified. I kept succumbing to these melodramatic moments in which I looked out the subway window onto South Brooklyn and sobbed. Ugh, writing this is making me nostalgic. I have liked my job since the first day (the earthquake), but I think that the move was more traumatic for me than I admitted to myself, since I am such a professional transient. Even though it can be a really hard place to live, I loved New York from the first day to the last. I don't think it would be productive to make a list of everything/everyone that I miss, but leaving kind of robbed me of my usual joie de vivre attitude for a while. I was so sad and lonely that I think that I was semi-catatonic until maybe mid-November. Maybe I was finally getting PTSD for everything that happened since I graduated from college. Then I decided that I had let the mourning period go on long enough and snapped out of it. It was actually a pretty cathartic experience and really it is a small price to pay to have more empathy for sadness.

Drivers Licenses

Illinois: January and February
New York: February to September
Virginia: September to December. My Virginia license is so bootleg that not only is my birthday incorrect, but the picture is super bad (they don't let you smile). Maybe the DMV worker should have focused a little more, instead of monologuing me about how her co-worker asks too many questions in staff meeting. The security woman at the airport told me, "This don't look like you," so I showed her my New York license. Sometimes my hair disappears in black and white photos.

Best Television Show

I don't have a tv, so the competition was not very stiff.

My Dad Had Chemo, a Stem-Cell Transplant and An Angioplasty

Hey, as long as I'm writing uncharacteristically depressing stuff... I think that the first time that I really understood the gravity of the situation was when my brother texted me a picture of my other brother sitting with his legs crossed and the caption, "Look who's gay, lol" (ok, some people in my family have meathead tendencies). My dad was sitting behind my brother and his hair was gone. I was so shocked that I started crying on the subway, which seems to be a theme of this post. When the subway is full of break dancers and drunks, no one is fazed by a little emotional breakdown. It was agonizing for me to realize that he wasn't invincible and that we had so little control over the outcome of the procedures. I think up to that point, I never imagined that my family would be affected by something so harrowing. Luckily my parents live by Northwestern and everything has gone as well as possible and many positive things have happened.

I'm not really sure what inspired me to write all that, except that is really some of what happened. I post the funny stuff all the time, so you are already up to speed. 2011 had a lot of great moments and the bad ones had good outcomes, so I have nothing to put in a Facebook status.

Happy New Year!

The Bizarro Miss Jill

2011-12-30T00:25:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a weird post, since I just discussed my hatred of chick flicks. This video has been making the rounds lately:

First, I think that the parents probably coached this girl. Second, she would have been my arch-nemesis in the eighties. Anything associated with being a boy was right up there with The Black Cauldron on my list of childhood horrors.

1. I hated wearing pants.
2. I refused to wear my hair in a ponytail* because I thought that people might see me from the front and get confused.
3. My sister Jr. always had to be the boy when we played. She is not very masculine either, but I had seniority.
4. I liked when the Young Women's activity was makeovers. Women always complain about how the boys got to do these awesome wilderness adventures, but my sister and I even did makeovers during free time at Girl's Camp. Then we took it to a whole new level by constantly turning my little brother Ty into a girl (when my dad wasn't home)-I even lovingly curled his hair.
5. Not only did I play with dolls as a child, but I still buy dolls from foreign countries. They are widely reviled. In our house, the Barbies always starred in epic dramas like The Ten Commandments.
6. My dad futilely tried to make us jocks by signing us up for every sport possible, but we always pretended to be sick to get out of it.

Everyone is saying "you go girl" to this video, but I don't think that gender is foisted upon us through a conspiracy by Hasbro or the media. Nobody is going to stop a parent from buying a superhero for a girl or a doll for a boy. They advertise like that because it works.

* This began when my pediatrician said, "I know that your sister is a girl, we are going to have to check with you." I was in first grade and my hair was so long that I could sit on it. Thanks, Dr. Sheade, I still don't really wear ponytails.

Wasting Your Life Away Watching Boring People Fall in Love

2011-12-29T18:12:00.001-08:00

One of my friends decided that the easiest way to get published was to write a chick lit book, so she read "Something Borrowed" as inspiration. Ladies, really? I feel the same way about romantic comedies. I watched 27 Dresses with my sister-in-law today and I found myself jealous of her limited English comprehension. I was going to make a New Year's resolution to stop watching movies in which you are faced to accept that life is an endless exercise in futility (as demonstrated by civil war, abandonment and the destruction of everything you hold dear), but the experience helped me to realize that I was actually on the right track all along.

Things I Hate About Chick Flicks

1. Girls Suddenly Get Hot By Putting in Contacts or Brushing Their Hair I would rather wear headgear than put in contacts, but I continue using them. I suspect that I watched too many questionable movies as a teen.

2. One night stands turn into true love- I'm not going to pretend that this never happens (and some success stories read this blog), but I think that it is rare. I think that there are a lot of men who will booty call girls that they would never have a relationship with and that causes all sorts of problems. The only girl I have ever met who didn't get emotionally involved after getting physical was a self-diagnosed nympho.

3. Comic Relief by the Annoying, Wisecracking Sidekick Who is Obese or Looks Like Kathy Griffin

4. They Make Women My Age or Older Get Crushes on Guys Born in 1992 (That's you, Team Jacob PTA Moms)

5. After a Night of Drunken Karaoke, You Realize That the Creepy Guy From Your Department is Your Soul Mate

6. Anything In Which the Heroine Runs Away From Her Problems to Exotic Lands Between us, as a nomad, I am going to have to tell you that your problems follow you, unless you figure out how to identify and to break your self-destructive patterns. Eat, Pray, Love is bad for society.

7. Declaring Love On a Megaphone, Microphone or With the School Band- I'm sorry, but if you decided to declare your love to someone you were not dating, would you really do it in a football stadium? My sister and I have both received declarations of love via text message, which is cowardly, but prudent. In my case, he was in the same room.

8. An Entry Level Administrative Assistant Can Afford a Two Bedroom on the Upper West Side

9. Running To the Airport and Stopping a Plane-I'm sure that most of you have been fondled in a post-9/11 airport, so I don't feel the need to elaborate.

10. They Make You Stupider*- I'm not saying that all of your time should be devoted to watching Ted Talks on youtube, but at least find something to do that will not irreparably destroy your understanding of relationships and society.

* Yeah, I know. Not changing that.

In Which Miss Jill Would Survive an INS Crackdown

2011-12-26T05:28:00.000-08:00

I have been hearing for years that the US citizenship test prohibitively difficult, so as the child of an immigrant, I wanted to try my hand:

US Citizenship Test

Ok, the only way that this test is difficult is if you don't know English. You only have to figure out 60% of the questions to pass-I think I could do that in any romance language. Maybe I'm being snobby, but "What ocean is on the east coast?" Come on.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T06:26:00.000-08:00

Whoever made this photo montage shares my taste in art and music.

In Which I Share More With Hobbits Than Body Type

2011-12-22T04:20:00.000-08:00

This is unrelated, but once I made fun of someone on Facebook and my brothers did a print screen and put it in a place where my parents would see it.

On my friend's birthday, all of the party guests dressed up as her. She described the experience as a "wake-up call." I had a similar experience when I took this stress test. I got a 384 for this year with the prognosis: "You have a high or very high risk of becoming ill in the near future." I think that the result would be equal or higher for every year after I turned twenty-five and it doesn't even account for scenarios like working for Neo-Ottomans or finding out that your neighbor got stabbed outside of your building. I don't even write about most of the weird things that happen, unfortunately.

When I moved, a lot of people warned me that New York to DC was a really hard move, but I felt that I was supposed to, so I did it anyway. It is a million times less exciting and a lot of people are the same genre of boring mixed with delusions of grandeur. At church the other day I thought that it would be hard to pick any of the people out in a police lineup, because they were all kind of the same. But I'm starting to think that maybe the boringness is what I need right now.

This morning on the way to work, I randomly started thinking about how after the War of the Rings, Frodo is spent and done with adventures. Maybe I got all the weird stuff out of my system and it is better to be boring for a while. Maybe 2012 is the year of no jarring life experiences. Did anyone else feel like that when they hit 30?

Things I Would Never Buy Even If I Were a Billionaire

2011-12-21T04:51:00.000-08:00

1. An expensive phone. Whenever I want a cheap laugh from my students, I pull out my $20 phone. I can leave that thing anywhere in the school and I know that no one would steal it. I could leave it in the rec room of juvie and no one would touch it. That is a priceless quality for a space cadet like me. Whenever I see someone middle class with a RAZR flip phone, I immediately think that they are cool. I would still have one if I hadn't given it to the Chinese laundry by mistake.

2. A performance from a famous musician at my child's sweet sixteen party. I would be really sad if my child wanted that, because then I would know that my value system had not been properly passed on. I hate groupies and I hate sycophants and I agree with Dante about their deserved fate:

I respect people's accomplishments, but I can't imagine acting servile or thinking that people were superior.

3. An expensive car. A Corolla will get you the same place as a BMW.

4. Clothes with expensive brand names displayed. VULGAR.

5. Implants. See above reason.

6. A star named for my cherished loved one.

7. First-class plane tickets. For various reasons, I have been seated in first-class lots of times and all it seems to do is get you in awkward convos with men your father's age in business casual attire.

What I Would Buy

1. Amtrak tickets. I only do this if I have time constraints, but it is SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE DC BUS.

2. Hair extensions. I would put so much fake hair up there that people would think that I were the blonde Kim Kardashian (if the only part of my body they could see were my head).

3. A school.

4. Cancer researchers, so that there would not be special interest involvement. There has to be a better way than the nightmare of chemo.

My Student Just Showed Me This

2011-12-20T06:25:00.000-08:00

Especially For Mormons: How To Make Friends and Not Alienate People

2011-12-19T05:54:00.000-08:00

Once in Honduras, someone randomly pointed to me and said, "Esa muchacha es muy directa (that girl is really blunt)." That is actually only partially true-I am really only frank with people I care about, otherwise it isn't really worth it to me. So rest assured that if I sent you a curt text about your lack of reliability, it could easily be interpreted as, "I'm glad that we are friends." That being said, I cannot be relied upon to tell you that you look ugly or that your cooking sucks.

As I also care deeply about Miss Jill, I have been known to tough love myself. For example, I recently gently told myself that if you want to have a cooking hobby, you also need to have an exercise hobby. This resulted in buying a mini-elliptical machine that I can't figure out how to put together.

In that light, as many of us know, Mormons consistently suffer from PR problems. Although, it is fine to hope that people will not be offended, I think that the onus is on us to figure out what we can improve on our end to be less offensive. I myself was very annoying and sanctimonious after I graduated from college and moved to Honduras. I wish that I could time travel back to 2005 and b slap that girl. I would like to help others avoid falling into that trap.

In order to avoid alienating people....

Disclaimer-I don't think that most Mormons do most of this stuff, but the fact that anyone does is scary.

1. The day after your coworker's kid got busted for shoplifting at the mall, don't brag about little Ammon's Court of Honor (based on real life events).

2. Most people think that overly perky people are annoying. I am a morning person, so I sometimes have to fight this. Don't have a creepy permasmile and a glazed expression.

3. Stop getting haircuts that no one else in America has. People with slicked missionary 'dos or short, chunky layers with skunk highlights-I'm looking at you.

4. The Starbucks employee does not need to hear that drinking coffee is against your religion (based on real life events).

5. Unless you are their teacher, please avoid telling people not to swear unless they are dropping 25 f bombs a minute. Get over it. Once they get to know you, they will probably stop.

6. Don't try to be hip. There is a 99.5 percent chance that you are not. People like you more if you make fun of your own unhipness, trust me.

7. Don't sneak into the art classroom and put construction paper clothes on all of the nude prints (based on real life events).

8. Don't elongate the skirt on the stick figure on the women's restroom sign (based on real life events recounted by the person who did this).

9. Don't freak out about Coke products. I don't like soda very much, but I drank some Pepsi once just because a girl was loudly proclaiming to nonmembers that it was a sin.

10. Don't sever relations with friends and family members who leave the church and don't make people your projects.

11. Don't refuse to check someone out at the grocery store (as the cashier) just because they are buying a beer (based on real life events).

12. Don't yell at the other team's cheerleaders for being immodest (based on real life events).

13. Don't constantly spam Facebook with Conference talks and the caption "Love it!" or "So true!"

14. Don't view someone offering you a drink as a challenge to your moral code, when really they are just being polite.

I'm sure there are more, so maybe there will be part 2.

In Defense of Teaching

2011-12-13T11:06:00.000-08:00

I already posted today, but I'm proctoring a makeup exam for my coworker, so here is another one. I have all the time in the world, because I don't leave until tomorrow night and my entire family is getting gift cards.

Does anyone ever wonder if they had the potential to be really good at something, but never had an opportunity to try it? I always wonder that about elementary school teaching. When I was at BYU, people always rolled their eyes at el ed majors, because it was seen by a lot of people as an M.R.S. degree for dumb girls (and I wonder if this is just a Mormon thing). It wasn't as bad as majoring in Marriage, Family, Human Development, but it was almost tantamount to giving the feminist movement a swirly. It never even occurred to me to major in it-then I ended up teaching sixth graders in Honduras and at the Turkish school and I LOVED it. They are so cute and you can do creative projects without having to worry about anyone thinking it is uncool and giving you attitude. I like teaching high school, but I wonder all the time if I missed my vocation.

One of my good friends did Teach for America in New York and moved here when I did. She is an elementary school teacher and she was talking about the condescending things that people say to her when they find out that she is a teacher. She is very smart and could have done anything that she wanted, so it irks her. In her honor...

Why I Like Being a Teacher

1. Constant stream of weird/funny stories, although I generally don't feel comfortable putting them online.

2. In stark contrast to when I worked for personal injury lawyers, I never have to wonder if I am making the world better or worse. Being nice to teens has to positively impact the world somehow.

3. My capacity to love has grown so much. If you can love an obnoxious kid who yells "Shut up, lady" while you are dutifully trying to teach Utah Studies, you can love anyone.

4. I have a gang sign associated with my name.

5. I have never met anyone who could find jobs as quickly as I can, regardless of the economy and location. Sometimes it happens a little too quickly, just as I am starting to enjoy the company of showbiz folk.

6. I am an expert on ineffective parenting, because I have seen so many examples of the result.

7. I have a collection of evil eye jewelry.

8. I have had some very intense intercultural experiences that I don't think would be possible any other way. Although I am interested in cultures, I was never very interested in Turkey and now I am an expert.

9. It is hard to micromanage teachers and no one cares if a staple is in the correct place.

10. Twenty years from now, some kid in Honduras or DC or Turkey or Uzbekistan or New York will say, "Remember when that crazy blonde lady....."

So let's have a truce. If you don't automatically think that I was a mediocre student because I'm a teacher, I won't snap judge you as boring because you are a bureaucrat or a finance person.

CNN Tribute to My Former Home

2011-12-12T18:42:00.000-08:00

It is hard to read, but it says:

Q: Which country has the worlds [sic] highest murder rate, at 82 per 100,000 people a year?
You answered correctly: Honduras

If I ever have a child who turns out like Jill: July 2005-August 2011, I think that I will develop an anxiety disorder.

Banned South African Commercial

2011-12-07T15:10:00.000-08:00

Exploring The Seedy Underbelly of DC Nightlife

2011-12-05T05:08:00.000-08:00

A few years ago for my birthday, my friend bought me a ticket to the musical Fela. Per Wikipedia: "Fela Anikulapo Kuti (15 October 1938 — 2 August 1997), or simply Fela, was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, pioneer of Afrobeat music, human rights activist, and political maverick."

In New York, most amateur cultural events take place in the basement or some kind of annex to a bar. Seriously everything-from poetry readings about the Iranian Green movement to improv shows to an accordion band performance to New Age Shakespeare adaptations- takes place in some sort of bar, because people can afford to rent the space. For a teetotaler, I have been to lots of bars. Sorry Mom, but there is alcohol served at TGIFriday's, so I don't see how this is any worse.

Most of the people I know here are pretty conservative, so I didn't realize until this weekend that the same thing happens here. My friend has a coworker who plays the drums in an Afrobeat group, so we went to his performance on Saturday. It was in the basement of a vegan friendly bar.

Some highlights

* For an Afrobeat band, I was surprised that its membership skewed very white and very middle aged. They were good, although I might not be the most knowledgeable critic of that genre.

* I was happy to still get carded, but sad the next day when it was Sunday and I was still wearing a wristband that said "Tequila!" and the scissors were in the kitchen with the mouse.

* The featured co-worker was sporting a ZZ top beard and pirate jacket (which I wasn't into due to the PTSD I have developed from my GPS being stuck in pirate mode)

* A group of fourth graders head banged with a white Rasta guy in the front row. I will file that for my list of "Things My Ten-Year-Old Will Never Do, Because She Will Not Have A Cool Mom."

* They were also joined by a man in his sixties wearing a wig and a cheerleading uniform, complete with pom pons.

* About a fourth of the patrons belonged to some sort of middle-aged lesbian social group, so I felt like I was surrounded by Bieber and Velma from Scooby Doo, dancing giddily under the influence.

It is funny, because when I was in my twenties, I had panic attacks whenever I thought about a life in which the ward Halloween party would be the most exciting part of my week. Now, I'm scared of becoming a forty-year-old at a bar show on a Saturday night. What is happening to me?

Fast Sunday, Within the Parameters of Satan's Plan

2011-12-04T12:09:00.000-08:00

I'm generally pretty good at fasting and I actually feel very strongly that it works, from a religious perspective. However, this morning I woke up feeling really nauseated, in a feminine kind of way. I decided to go the Muslim route and to fast another day. I went to the kitchen to get some crackers and in the middle of the floor, a small mouse lay in state with his eyes open. After moving from New York, I honestly thought that those days were over.

As I fled the scene without taking any measures to deal with the issue, my first thought was that my roommate had bought a fake mouse to scare me. There really wasn't a valid reason for a mouse to 1. Be in our kitchen 2. Drop dead. Once Baby Troy left a lizard toy in the front lawn of my parent's house and through some strange twists of fate, I ended up believing that it was real and extremely dangerous. The incident damaged my reputation, so I wasn't about to get duped twice.

My roommate disposed of it while I watched Everybody Hates Chris on a bootleg website. The good thing about going like ten years without having a t.v. is that there are constantly new treasures to be discovered. I would like to publicly thank her for that, although I deem my gratitude null and void if she planted the mouse.

So if you heard my stomach pharisaically rumbling during church, know that it was only doing so under extreme duress.

In Which Homework Falls From The Heavens Like Manna (Instead of free food)

2011-11-30T15:18:00.000-08:00

It is an achievement to receive a failing grade when I am your teacher. You really have to set a goal, pursue it without wavering and tune out the annoying midwestern accent that constantly tells you what assignments you are missing. A few kids didn't do my semester project and I remind them about it every single time that I see them. Most of them gave up and did it, but there are a few stalwart homework avoiders who refuse to buckle. Let's call one of them "Dave." Dave asked me if I would just give him a 20 percent for not doing it and was surprised when I said no.

Dave ran into my classroom the other day and exclaimed with glee, "Good news! I have a project."
I raised my eyebrow at him. "How?"
"I found an unclaimed one and put my name on it. Can I have an "A" now?"
"Please elaborate on 'an unclaimed one?' "
"My other teacher showed us the projects for her class that didn't have names. I saw that one was about Cesar Chavez, so I took it."
"How can I give you credit for a project that you did not do?"
"It's mine. I claimed it. My name on it."
Another student who was eavesdropping said, "Yeah, it his. God wanted him to have that project or he would not have found it. You can't refuse God."
"This conversation is endangering my mental health."

******************************************************************************************************************************

Me: Can you please stop texting ladies from under your desk?
Student: That is the incorrect word. It is not ladies, it is shawtys*
Me: Does it really sound natural if I say, Stop texting shawtys? How do you spell that? (I really want an audio clip for this one)
Student: S-h-a-w-t-y-s, but the academic spelling is s-h-a-w-t-i-e-s

Definition from urbandictionary: Fine a** woman, or your girl.

Cherishing the Legacy of Selena, Sixteen Years Too Late

2011-11-29T18:33:00.000-08:00

Sorry if you are on my g-chat contact list-this will be a repeat.

Watching movies with my class reminds me of the time that I saw Harry Potter 6 at the Magic Johnson theaters in Harlem. There is a lot of high volume emoting going on. We watched Selena in class the day before Thanksgiving break.

Selena and father engage in an emotional fight about her love affair with rocker Chris.
Student stands up and screams: Ima cut that old fool!
The class went crazy and just as I was about to scold them, a student contentedly smiled and observed, "This Spanish class is like a family!" Not wanting to be a crotchety old matriarch, I held my tongue.
The next day when Selena and her father had a tear-filled reconciliation, I asked, "Are you still wanting to cut that old fool?*" The student replied, "No, he tight now."

The next day when Selena met her untimely demise at the hands of her fan club president, Yolanda, a girl yelled, "Miss! Don't do us like that!"

I replied, "I'm sorry, but I was not responsible for the unfortunate death of Selena." She implored, "Look at this face! Look at this face!" I turned on the light so that I could look at her face. Tears were streaming. She looked so shaken that I was unsure if she could function for the rest of the day. Then I looked in the back row and saw a massive football player, staring forward, bravely blinking away tears.

The culprit:

* I wish that I could put audio of myself using slang. It sounds so unnatural that it is really funny.

Things That I Love On Blogs

2011-11-28T05:06:00.000-08:00

Overshares/TMI: If you are the relative who wrote about locking your kids in the playroom in order to have trysts with your husband-props.

Really unintelligent arguments for ideas that I disagree with: Example-An emotional treatise on why people should only watch G-rated movies would be my ideal reading material.

Blogs By People In Other Hardcore Religions: I read blogs by Orthodox Jews, polygamist Muslims, Quiverfulls (people who believe in having a million children like the Duggars) and more than I am willing to admit. I decided yesterday that I need to do something about my internet research addiction.

Challenges With Mental Illness: My only personal experience with mental illness was a couple of weeks ago when I was too sad to get out of bed. It kind of scared me. Then I realized that the source of my malady was that I watched too many episodes of Mad Men in a row, as my sister had warned me against.

The older I get, the luckier I feel that I don't have any chemical imbalances or baggage or issues from childhood. It seems kind of rare. However, I am really interested in the treatment/healing process for some reason. Maybe I should have been a counselor. I think that it is great that people feel comfortable talking about their challenges, because it could be really helpful to others.

Pictures of Mormon formal wear: I especially like when they say stuff like, "It is so hard to be modest in this evil world.* Luckily, I found the cutest prom dress of all time, lol."

Said dress:

Personal vendettas: I am usually pretty careful not to air grievances on my blog, although it might make it more interesting. Luckily, not everyone shares my views on discretion.

Funny Stories-- VERY RARE

Expatriate/travel stories: Thanks Julianne and Bridget of Arabia. It isn't that season of my life right now, so it is fun for me to hear about other people's adventures.

Adults Who Make Costumes for Movie Premiers

Pictures of kids- Sorry, I am lame. I am a teacher for a reason.

Anything Involving D & D- I would actually like to watch this at some point.

Stuff That I Can Make Fun Of

* I have said this before, but I totally disagree with that statement. What is so hard about layering? Most Mormon girls I know have PLENTY of clothes.

A Few Other Things That I Hate

Retread feminist arguments- I don't necessarily disagree with all of them, but think of something original to talk about, people.

Anti-Mormons Who Keep Saying "Drink the Kool-Aid" Like It Is The Cleverest Thing On Earth: My parents weren't even married when Jonestown happened.

Taxonomy of High School Teachers

2011-11-25T02:52:00.000-08:00

Ugh, why do I find it impossible to sleep past six? I have some Thanksgiving guests from New York and it will probably be a few hours before anyone is awake. I think that I have some secret gland that secretes coffee/speed and makes me hyper starting at 5:30 a.m. I can seriously get ten errands done before 9:00 a.m.

I have been wanting to classify high school teachers for a while, so here goes.

Teacher Archetypes

Lovable Mr. Wizard who blows stuff up and launches it into space- I hate Science and Math, but Chemistry was one of my favorite classes in high school, because my teacher was hilarious. On my 16th birthday, she pretended to get angry with me and wrote me a referral to the Dean's office. I was a huge suck up, so I was devastated. She let me walk pretty far down the hall, tears streaming down my face, when she started running after me, yelling that it was all a prank. I would totally do something like that now.

Music Teacher Who Has Nuclear Meltdowns Whenever a Performance Date Looms

The constant complainer- Everyone hates the Pollyanna coworker who praises the boss and follows the company line; a certain amount of complaining helps everyone to bond. But someone always takes it a step too far. My coworker who yelled, "Eat s@#$ and die" comes to mind.

Pedagogical Pol Pot- This individual takes pleasure from rigidly enforcing arbitrary rules in order to wield power.

The Young Hottie

The Middle Aged Prom Queen- This teacher uses students to supplant adult friendship and cares deeply about his/her popularity with the student body. When you are really young, it is harder to be an authority figure, but by your forties you should have this figured out. I student taught at two different schools and I loved the middle school because the teacher let me do everything by the second week and never came in on Fridays. Some of you readers were students there and now somehow became adults, which makes me feel old.

Then I got transferred to a high school and fell into the clutches of the worst teacher of all time. The first thing she said to me was, "I am not friends with any teachers-my friends are the kids." She fruitlessly spoke through a microphone while all of the students did their own thing. Once I teased a kid (who laughed a lot) and she told me that my joke had hurt her deeply. My BYU professor was chilling in Spain most of the time that I was there, so I got trapped.

Cynical Social Studies Teacher- I don't have an anecdote for this one, but it is common. As a former Utah Studies teacher, I usually think that these people are cool.

Foreign Language Teacher Whose Whole Curriculum is Watching "El Rey Leon" on repeat- My Spanish 2 teacher was this guy and I am proud of myself for getting good grades in Spanish 3 (possibly related to the fact that my dad is from Mexico). I recall that he had a mail order bride. A bunch of kids got angry and plotted to make fake deportation papers and leave them on his desk. It broke my heart to tell them that you can't deport a Puerto Rican. That reminds me that my American friend got deported from Mexico once. I need to get that story.

First-Year Teacher Who Constantly Cries

The Coach Who Teaches For Five Minutes and Then Lets You Talk the Rest of the Period- I have to tread carefully with this one, because my dad was a basketball coach/teacher and I'm sure that he actually taught. However, this is not the case with everyone.

Beatnik English Teacher With a Glazed Expression- This person is just biding time with teens until his poetry anthology is published. Likes to talk about the local scene. Sexually explicit works.

Veteran Teachers Who Don't Take Any Pains to Hide the Fact That They Hate Kids

You Tool

2011-11-24T23:22:00.000-08:00

As I was walking into my apartment building yesterday, I saw an older lady intently reading something that was lovingly taped to a pole. I asked, "Is that interesting?" She shook her head and said, "Someone's car was stolen." She was very nice, but reading comprehension may not be her strong suit.

Exhibit A:

DEAR THIEF!!!!

Thanks for steeling from my car, nothing better then finding that your space has been violated.

Keep the GPS and sell it if you are so desperate.

BUT I WANT MY I-POD BACK!!! It is sentimental (that means it means something to someone).

WHY would you steal something that is 5 years old anyway???

YOU TOOL

Return the stolen merchandise before the police find you!!!

THERE ARE MANY EYES WATCHING IN THIS NEIGHBORHOOD. YOUR TIME WILL COME.

Leave my I-pod in front of building number 53. THANKS!

PS: Hope the bottle of water you took was refreshing.

Leaked Scientology Rap Video

2011-11-24T06:23:00.000-08:00

As we started making fun of this, I quickly realized that it was yet another one of my encounters with hypocrisy. It took me approximately .00005 seconds to find this:

In Which I Can't Come Up With A Clever Title Because I Have To Go To Work

2011-11-16T17:01:00.000-08:00

From the washingtonpost.com:

I'm actually surprised that Castro is so low-they must have not asked any teens.

Yet Another Inspirational Religious Story From Miss Jill

2011-11-16T05:24:00.001-08:00

Ok, I lied. I'm still working on "Things I Like About Blogs." Unfortunately, hating on stuff comes much more naturally.

Disclaimer: I am only telling this story because I don't think that I have very many readers in DC and no one could possibly know the people mentioned.

When I lived in Honduras, the closest temple was in Guatemala City. A few times a year, the stake sponsored a trip (usually experienced in donated American school buses). In spite of its reputation, I really, really like Guatemala City. Some of the visitors are super hardcore, wake up at like five and do eight sessions a day. As soon as they are finished with one session, they run into the next. At the end of the day, everyone compares notes. I still can't believe that this happened, but once I did seven due to peer pressure.

I had flashbacks last night when I went to the DC temple. I am finished at work at 3:30, so it is pretty easy for me to swing up there before the traffic starts getting bad. I missed the 5:00 session because I was vainly looking for an ATM to get cash for clothing rental (rip-off). When I was already in the 5:30, they told me that I was the only person there, so I would have to wait until 6:00. Luckily, I had a heart to heart with a senior missionary about harvesting eyes from corpses and the time flew by. In the 6:00, a couple was going through together for the first time. She was young, foreign and very pretty, but she looked a little queasy. After about fifteen minutes, she stood up, hobbled past me with her hand on her mouth and proceeded to throw up everywhere.

Everyone froze for a minute and then the elderly workers faced the crisis with bravery. As the stench quickly filled the room, I regret to say that I was trying not to laugh. I felt horrible for her, but it was just too much in one day (crazy day at school too) and I lost it.

Things That I Hate On Blogs

2011-11-14T17:16:00.000-08:00

On a scale of one to ten, how bad is it if you sometimes read some people's blogs just to reassure yourself that your life is interesting?

10. Pictures of people hanging out at WalMart,* playfully posing with the merchandise. Why is this so ubiquitous?

9. Mom one uppers. My sister recently had three kids under three and there were women who would write stupid stuff like, "At least your kids didn't get chicken pox and whooping cough during Christmas, when you were overwhelmed by your Etsy craft business." Actually, this is love/hate, because I love to make fun of it.

8. People complaining about being single, which I think probably goes back to my difficulties in bonding with people with low self-esteem. Let's cut to the chase and I will tell you that you are not single because you are too smart and fabulous and men are all scared of you. I don't think that there is always a reason that people are single. Smart women get married all the time.

7. Birth stories. These people are more insidious than those Population Zero hoodlums on Saturday's Warrior-sometimes I start hyperventilating when I read them. Do I really need to know that if someone had hit you on the hand with a hammer you wouldn't have noticed? Sorry if this was you.

6. Pictures of people at church singles events with the caption, "Don't you wish that you had my awesome life?" NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

5. Stories about good deeds in which the writer is the hero, unless something funny stuff went down.

4. People in front of Machu Picchu. I am still doing a self analysis concerning why this annoys me. I also hate creative posing.

3. Excessive use of Mormon General Authority quotes, unless they are from the Journal of Discourses.

2. A soundtrack that starts as soon as you load the page. It is embarrassing enough to be blog stalking boring chicks, but does the whole world need to know as soon as Michael Buble starts crooning from your computer?

1. People who write about inane stuff and get 5 million comments, mostly from the "The fill in the blank Family." Why? Because I am jealous!

Tomorrow: Things I Love On Blogs

* In honor of my friend who met her husband at an anti-WalMart event.

Handwriting As A Window To The Soul

2011-11-11T15:50:00.000-08:00

At some point in elementary school, I sat down and deliberately designed my handwriting. I practiced my creation until I had mastered it. It is very unusual, so I decided that I wanted to have it analyzed by a professional. I tried to analyze it using a book, but it told me that I was an egomaniac, so I wanted a second opinion. This is the sample that I sent:

Professional analysis:

You have very interesting and very unique handwriting Jill. No wonder you were curious to have it analyzed. I want to thank you for adding in the cursive that was very helpful.

You write carefully when you put pen to paper, making sure that each word, each letter is well formed and easy to read. There is a deliberateness about your writing which reveals fore thought and creative carefulness. Your handwriting has a decorative flair to it. This probably spills over into your life.

You have just the right flair about your own person, meaning you bring your own special little flair and style to how you decorate your space, home and/or working space and on your own person.

You are intensely independent, not wishing to be financially or emotionally dependent on anyway; quite wanting to stand on your own 2 feet.

Certain structures in the writing reveal that you are organized too. NO

You have a love of travel and you will bend yourself at times to keep harmony and keep the peace with others.

You are good with your hands, very good hand eye coordination is showing.

You are efficient, able to find the shortest most efficient way to get a project done.

You also appreciate efficiency in others.

You can speak directly.

Do you feel yourself to be quite an honest person? I don't understand why this is a question

You are a heart centered person, friends and family are very important to you. You are careful with setting boundaries with others to make sure you have just enough elbow room or personal space around you.

Carry a Kleenex because you are likely to cry at sad movies and Hallmark commercials. Rocky IV

Control and having control and being in control make you feel safe in your world, and is where you are most comfortable navigating in the world.

You would far rather plan than be spontaneous. You like routine,

You were feeling optimistic about something at the time of writing.

There is a conventionality about you, you will conform to what is expected and will also conform to social norms and customs.

At your convenience, let me know what you thought of your mini analysis today. I hope you enjoyed it.

Thank you for your trust and allowing me to partner with you today in taking a look at your handwriting.

I am curious if people who know me think that this is accurate.

Notes From The Commune

2011-11-10T14:28:00.000-08:00

Since falling victim to a botched colonoscopy, I have been somewhat skeptical of modern medicine. Will I ever give birth in a blow-up tub with Yanni Live at the Acropolis playing quietly in the background? No way! Am I willing to try weird stuff to stave off quotidian boredom? Absolutely. Disclamer: I am generally pretty healthy, so I might not be the best test subject.

My Experience With Alternative Medicine

Acupuncture: I only tried it once and I couldn't feel anything happening.

Aztec Healing Clay: It is a pulsating mud masque that supposedly pulls impurities out of you. I put it on my face and within hours, I had a massive acne cyst on my eyebrow.

Chinese Foot Patch: This supposedly pulls toxins out of your body and into the foot patch.

Chinese Reflexology Foot Rub: Sort of relaxing, but I didn't see any huge health improvements.

Colonic Irrigation: I'm not explaining what this is-you can google it if you are curious. My roommate called and made an appointment under my name, because she wanted to try it and wanted someone to go with her. I ended up going with her and the woman who performed the procedure told me that I needed to have child sized equipment. Not the best day of my life.

Evil Eye Jewelry: I have received a lot of interesting gifts from Turkish people. Although I am not completely certain, I don't seem to have a hex on me. I am pretty sure that there is not a good reason for anyone to be jealous of me, so I am pretty safe.

Iridology: In iridology someone stares into your eye and tells you what is wrong with you. My neighbor at BYU was a practitioner and diagnosed me with gallbladder problems. I have not had any symptoms in ten years, so I suppose the results are inconclusive.

Muscle Testing: Chiropractors do this to test for allergies. They put something in your hand (like a vial of wheat germ or something) and press down on your arm. If your body is intolerant, your arm will collapse. If not, it will stay firm. We did this for hours when I was in college. We tested its legitimacy by placing car coolant in a girl's hand and pressing down. Then we decided that it could tell the future and tried to discern everyone's year of marriage. My friend became very depressed when she got 2006 (it was 2003), but she is still not married so maybe things would have turned out differently if she had shown some faith.

Raw food cleanse: After several weeks of strict adherence, my very regular period refused to come (sorry mixed audience, but I have told this story before). My co-workers started calling it my immaculate conception problem. I got annoyed and ate a piece of pizza and it started almost immediately.

Reiki: The inspiration for this post, because I actually did it on Monday. Definition: "Reiki is an energy medicine practice that originated in Japan. In Reiki, the practitioner places his hands on or near the person receiving treatment, with the intent to transmit ki, believed to be life-force energy." You may have seen Reiki performed by a homeless guy on Modern Family. It was so weird, because I could feel all this movement inside of my body and a few times I had such sharp sensations that I looked up to see if the girl was touching me and she wasn't. When it was over, I was so relaxed that I was afraid to drive. Maybe it is psychological or maybe my chakras are now perfectly in line.

If you are curious about trying anything, but too scared, tell me and I will do it and report back. My only inhibitions are that I don't like to get weighed or use hallucinogens.

To conclude, I would like to share another comment from a student paper on Hugo Chavez: "He judged at beauty pageants, not saying he was the prettiest person to be juding other people's beauty."

In Which Getting Fridaed Means Much More Than Just Having One Eyebrow

2011-11-10T01:56:00.000-08:00

I am going to be straight with you-as much as I love teens, sometimes I wish that my job were a little more intellectually demanding. I am pretty sure that even if someone slipped me a roofie, I could still properly teach present tense verb conjugations. The good thing about Spanish is that you can sometimes weave culture and history into the curriculum, which I do whenever I start getting bored. I have taught in four very different environments: 1. Mostly white, mostly Mormon, gifted talented kids in Utah 2. Upper-class Hondurans 3. Turkish Muslims 4. All black Catholic school and I will tell you right now, interest in the Cuban Revolution is universal. Everyone likes to talk a little Che.

For the past few days, all of the students have had to do a short speech with a visual aid about a famous Spanish speaking person. Although nothing can possibly beat the epic academic dishonesty of the Turkish school ("Miss, Turkish people cheat so much because they are more clever than American people. We are cunning, like a fox." REAL QUOTE), there have been a few power points cut and pasted from Wikipedia with hyperlinks still visible.

I am always happy when I see some signs of originality like "Hugo Chavez is very full of himself for such an ugly guy." Yesterday one of the girls did a presentation on Frida Kahlo. One of her power point slides had a picture of Frida and Diego with the caption, "THEIR MARRIAGE WAS HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I was forced to agree with that astute observation.

As you know, in addition to her marital issues, poor Frida was in a bus/trolley accident in which she was was impaled by a metal handrail. One of the students in that class has a sports injury and has to use metal crutches. They were on the floor and one of the girls got up to throw something away. She tripped on the crutches, but caught herself. One of the boys gasped and exclaimed, "We almost had another Frida situation on our hands!"

In Which Telemundo Needs A Visit From The ACLU

2011-11-10T01:53:00.001-08:00

I have seen some pretty crazy stuff go down on Mexican television, but nothing beats what I witnessed at a hole in the wall taqueria a few days ago. Someone had put on one of those judge shows and it caught my attention when I realized that the defendant was a Mexican in an Orthodox Jew costume:

Forgive my horrible camera phone work. I switched tables just so I could watch. It was an alimony case between "Isaac" and "Raquel" and a key witness was an expert in adult toys.

Raquel:

What???????????????????????????????????????

In Honor of the Barrage of New York City Marathon Status Updates

2011-11-08T17:59:00.000-08:00

I was super happy when I realized that I still had this picture. When I was at the Turkish school, one of my co-workers was especially proud of his marathon participation. The week before the marathon, he took the picture below with all of his medals, made a dozen copies and hung them up around the school:

I thought that this unparalleled demonstration of hubris was so funny that I stole one and hung it up in my apartment for several months.

In Which You Would Be Scared to Meet Me in a Dark Alley

2011-11-04T05:42:00.000-07:00

Unless you are reading this from Kanab, I am probably not the first person you think of when you hear the words “street cred.” So imagine my surprise when I was walking through the hall the other day and ran into some of my Spanish 3 students. They immediately flashed the sign below and started chanting, "West side, Wagner (my last name)! West side, Wagner!"

As this loving tribute has continued throughout the week, I have been grateful to realize that a W last name is good for something besides going last on the elementary school fitness tests.

In Which Miss Jill Wonders What Goes On At Disneyland lstanbul

2011-11-01T15:51:00.000-07:00

This post contains adult themes.

My most odious coworker to date was a Turkish* guy that we will call "Mr. D." I don't make a practice of dissing on non-strangers on my blog, but trust me, he is an extreme case. Mr. D. was a self proclaimed expert on American culture and tried to showcase his knowledge in daily conversations. His favorite phrases were, "Gone in sixty seconds" and "Show me the money!" If you happen to be American, please take a second to ask yourself how many times you have used either phrase. However, he was very resistant to any insight actual Americans had on our culture or language.

Once he said, “The** Miss Jill, let me tell you joke. There was this lady and she wanted to find movie for her son birthday party. She go to movie place and ask for the Mickey movie. She got the Mickey movie and brought it to the birthday party. Then she put the Mickey movie in the DVD player and the kids were in shock. The lady say, ‘I did not want this kind of Mickey movie! Hahahahahahhahahaha!’”
Confused, I said, “Huh? I’m sorry, Mr. D., but I do not understand your joke.”
“What do you mean you do not understand joke? It is very funny.”
“I don’t. What do you mean by Mickey movies?”
“All American people call porno movies Mickey movies. Everyone knows this thing.”
"Uhhhh.... I have never heard that before."

I walked away laughing, because what kind of thing is that to say in a conservative Muslim work environment? I am very hesitant to argue with anyone about anything, since I was defeated by my entire class on the pronunciation of "colonel" in 1996. And General Conference is pretty much the only time that I even think about the concept, so I was not confident in my vocabulary. First, I looked it up in Urban Dictionary, which has never let me down. Nothing. Then I asked some friends of ill repute. Still nothing. I can only conclude that some mean spirited person made that up and taught it to him as a joke.

* I generally like Turkish people. This man is not a reflection of his country.
** Not a typo.

In Which You Can Inherit Much More Than Your Father's Red Face and Huge Forehead

2011-10-31T15:36:00.000-07:00

My friend told me a story about a man in Chile who had incredible luck. He won the lottery twice and a house in a contest that involved matching yogurt lids. He always had a good job, attracted beautiful women and became known around town for his good fortune. As he lay dying, the family discussed the inheritance and one of the granddaughters said that she didn't want anything material, but preferred to have him pass on his luck. He put his hands on her and said, "I give you my luck." From that day forward, she began to win contests, grants, free airplane tickets, you name it. She was able to get everything that she wanted. I have met her and although she has been fortunate in many ways, I do think that some of that was a direct result of her dynamic personality.

MY THOUGHTS ON LUCK (Because I can't decide if I believe in it)

1. I have often heard people attribute things like good jobs and life experiences to luck, when the person had to make an effort to obtain those things. Like, "You are so lucky that you play the piano." Or, "You are so lucky that you have lived abroad." Really?

2. No one really has a perfect life, let's be honest, but I do think that there are definitely some huge disparities out there. People always make banal comments like, "You never really know what is going on underneath it all." True, but I grew up in a stable, upper middle class home and some people step on a landmine in Somalia. And other people are married to Warren Jeffs or Cody from Sister Wives. Everyone has their challenges, but they are definitely not equal. Being born into vastly unequal life circumstances is the closest thing I can think of to luck.

3. Is the fact that approximately 95% of what I draw comes to pass luck or due to an inexplicable universal force that I have learned to channel?

4. It took me a long time to realize how much of life was the result of my own decisions. I always used to wonder why I had a disproportionate amount of hard experiences and then one day I tough loved myself. Of course it is hard when you DECIDE to move to Central America alone. Of course it is hard when you DECIDE to move to New York City without a job in December. None of this is the result of luck.

5. I won a $20 gift certificate at Mexican bingo last week (did not gamble, Mom, it is free). Luck or skill?

My conclusion is that what happens to us is a combination of God's will, the consequences of our decisions and the decisions of others and just random things that happen. However, if you think that you are super lucky, you probably will be. Any thoughts?

Potential Ensign Story #1,432

2011-10-26T08:01:00.001-07:00

Yesterday the teachers were asked to wear clothing from their college. Thanks to Jimmer and especially Brandon Davies, quite a few of my students had heard of BYU. During Spanish 3, a student asked me if I were a Mormon and I said yes. Then he asked, "Can I ask you a very personal question about your religion? I mean, very personal..." Ok, maybe I am a sellout, but I was pretty averse to answering what I was pretty sure was a question about virginity in front of the entire Spanish 3 class. I felt differently when I taught at a hardcore Muslim school, because someone needs to defy stereotypes of Western moral decadence. I hesitantly responded, "You can ask me after class."

Every five minutes he repeated his request and I continued to stonewall him. After class he queried, "When you were a little kid, did your parents make you work in a store? When they paid you, did they give you tickets instead of money? I saw that on television."

Utilizing the vernacular, I replied, "You trippin, son." J/k, I am an educator. I just assured him that my parents were not running a Chuck E. Cheese. Has anyone heard of that happening with FLDS? I don't know what he was watching.

In Which My Corolla Walks the Plank

2011-10-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

I borrowed my friend's GPS because navigating DC can be rather difficult. I have found that it has three major problems:

1. It talks like a pirate and I can't figure out how to change the settings.

2. It thinks that I have red hair.

3. It is very unreliable.

For example, pretend that you are driving here:

The GPS would most likely counsel: "Aaaaaargh! Make a sharp left, ginger. Easy does it!" Unless my car suddenly turned into the General Lee, adherence would not be in my best interest.

Another important feature is that it frequently makes irrelevant comments instead of telling you where to go. For example, when I am waiting for it to tell me where to turn, instead it says, "Watch out for passing tanks. If you see one, wave and say 'Hello, tank.'" On Saturday it told me to get off the freeway and then get back on at the same exit. Another time, I tried to go to the mall in Arlington and I ended up at Georgetown. Unfortunately, I am too cheap to buy one that works properly and sometimes it surprises me by working.

My worst nightmare is pocket dialing my mother at the exact moment that I am verbally abusing an electronic device.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:

If you are a Downton Abbey fan, I want to let you know that you can find bootleg versions of season 2 online. I have already watched up to episode 6. All you have to do is search "Watch Downton Abbey season 2 online free." If you can't find it, let me know in the comments and I will help. Apologies to BBC for advocating piracy, but making Americans wait until January is ridiculous. I would probably pay to watch it if that were an option.

In Which Miss Jill Stops the Machine/Occupies DC For Like Two Hours

2011-10-23T18:37:00.000-07:00

J/k, I'm not an activist, but I went to the protests a few weeks ago. First, I went to the National Gallery of Art, in a feeble attempt to grasp onto my flagging self-perception as a normal, cultured person. Unfortunately that image seems to be going the route of the Gadafhi/Gaddafi/Qaddafi/Khadafi regime, because a few days ago my friend texted me, "You are a lot less normal than you think you are."

Is it just me or does the National Gallery kind of suck? I think I have been spoiled by living in close proximity to the Art Institute of Chicago and the Met, both which make me proud to be a member of the human race. When I was finished, I called my friend Kate and she told me that she was at the Air and Space Museum as a legal observer of a protest that had been staged there.* Unfortunately, a girl had been maced in the face by an overzealous security guard. Later that night she gave a rousing speech about her ordeal in which she more or less stated, "Nothing will stop me in this struggle. We can never give up, but I'm leaving in a few days to take my midterms." History would look a lot different if Che Guevara had let a few exams impede the revolution.

They shut down the museum for the remainder of the day and my friend told me that the tourists wanted to protest the protesters. On learning that the museum was closed, a little boy broke out into sobs. Kate soberly advised, "You will be grateful for this later, kid." Then some random protester walked by, handed me this sign and walked away, without explanation:

We returned to their home base in Freedom Plaza, which was conveniently located next to the Taste of DC festival. Kate's husband, Neil, quickly realized that the drunk attendees were somewhat lackadaisical about holding onto their meal tickets. He kept disappearing at intervals to scan the ground, which resulted in a bounty of more than $30 worth of food. The radicals decided to implore the Taste crowd to enter their ranks and somehow I ended up assisting in the creation of this poster:

I was super proud when I saw it in the Washington Post's photo album a few days later. As we were painting, a woman approached me and asked for permission to paint a sign. I magnanimously consented and asked what she was thinking of writing. "F#$@ the police," she responded with conviction. "It is for my ancestors." I've never been one to stand in the way of filial piety and my only authority stemmed from the fact that I got there ten minutes before she did, so I said, "Go for it." She did with gusto and if my memory serves, also added a smiley face and a heart. She then asked me if she could sleep there and I once again gave my assent, even though I would rather conceive Kim Jong-il's unholy lovechild than sleep on the pavement with the unwashed masses.

Does this look like the scene of someone who remembers each day she did not shower in the last ten years (there were three)?

In conclusion, I would like to echo a text that I received from my friend Suvi in New York: "I walked by a protest the other day and decided that someone normal looking should be involved, so I joined."

* Per Kate: This museum is teaching children about unmanned drones, which are killing machines and are responsible for 1,000s of deaths of innocent civilians and children in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other parts of the world. This technology should not be glorified, neither should the deaths of innocents be celebrated in any way.

In Which Miss Jill Advises Wannabe Carjackers

2011-10-17T18:49:00.000-07:00

Driving is not my forte and I have never gone to any lengths to hide that fact. Although I have actually improved quite a bit since my first white knuckled weeks in DC, I still have trouble parking. Last Friday my department chair and I had to do some errands and I was forced to face my greatest fear: parallel parking. The spot was right in front of a restaurant with outdoor seating. As I tried unsuccessfully to enter it, my dept. chair got out of the car and attempted to guide me into the spot, while cars raced by. After several failed attempts, an exasperated woman got up from her table and said, "Do you all need some help?" "Sure," I replied, thinking that she would give me some sage advice. "Just let me do it," she demanded. I thought about it for a moment and decided that a woman sitting with friends at a restaurant would not steal my car. "Good idea," I replied. As she seamlessly drove my car into the spot, two men pointed at me and jeered. I was unfazed.

Why I Don't Agree With Student Debt Forgiveness/ Tough Love From Miss Jill

2011-10-07T09:44:00.000-07:00

It is not the government's fault that you took out excessive student loans. I will NEVER be sympathetic to the loan forgiveness movement. Everyone should have access to an education, but a liberal arts degree from a private university is not an unalienable right. While it can be necessary to borrow money, I have never seen such profligate spending as among students in New York; some live in luxury apartments, go out to eat every night and take European vacations. After two years of excess, they are the proud recipients of a master's degree in Medieval Islamic Literature.

In order to obtain a federal student loan you should:
1. Be enrolled in a program in a high demand field at a low-cost state college. Private liberal arts colleges charge exorbitant tuition because people are stupid enough to go into debt to attend third tier universities. Stop enrolling and the price will go down.
2. Be at least 22 years of age. For most people, 18 is too young to make such a big financial decision.
3. Do the first two years at a community college. When I graduated in 1999 in Illinois, you could got to community college for free if you were in the top ten percent of your graduating class. I keep hearing people say that education should be free, but when it is, they don't take advantage of it.
4. Agree to make a reasonable effort to become employed at graduation. Too many people are taking unemployment benefits while waiting for their dream job. I earned $1600 a month, without insurance, in Manhattan, for 7 months, while working for a man who threw files on the floor and expected me to fetch them like a dog. As much as I hated it, I applied for 1400 jobs in three weeks in order to work there.
It is hard for quite a few people my age to believe this, but sometimes in life you just have to do things you hate. My friend has a master's from Oxford and she has been making copies for two years. THIS IS NOT A DREAM JOB ECONOMY.
5. If you do graduate school, make sure that it will actually benefit you. Otherwise, watch A LOT of documentaries and read A LOT of books. I have less formal education than most of my friends, but I rarely think, "Wow, I have no idea what they are talking about."

A very high percentage of student debt is the consequence of bad decision making.

Additional Point- Education can be free. Like my mother said when she saw my book collection, "Have you not heard of libraries?"

Feel free to disagree with me, I would be happy to hear alternate opinions.

In Which Miss Jill Radicalizes

2011-10-05T16:34:00.000-07:00

This post is lovingly dedicated to all of my friends who torture me with their haircut decisions.

J/k, I'm not radical, unless it is in a Ninja Turtles type way.

I just got derailed from grading by reading this blog: http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/. At first it made me feel better about my life, but then it started making me hyperventilate a little. Let's be honest-I have only had so much freedom to do weird jobs because in the back of my head I knew that if anything bad happened, I could always count on the Bank of Dad for a bailout.

That being said, I don't understand how people can choose careers that have a neutral or negative impact on society. I know that many people are just doing what they need to do to survive, but Wall Street people are probably smart and privileged enough to have multiple options. Why?????

In the spirit of full disclosure:

1. In spite of all the time that I have spent at New York City independent theaters and lecture halls, I generally like the United States. This is not a symptom of insularity.

2. New York was pretty hit and miss, but right now, I have a comfortable lifestyle. I have insurance and my parents are very stable financially. I feel like my public school education was actually quite good. Even if I have a history of accepting sketchy jobs for entertainment purposes, I always have one. I have not always had insurance, but I am super healthy and it has not been an issue-I just prayed every morning that I would not get hit by a car and it worked.

3. I have not been the victim of any grave injustices-maybe on a cosmic level, but not from society.

4. I do not have overwhelming consumer, medical or student debt.

What I am trying to say is that I don't need the government to give me anything, I don't have any personal axe to grind and that in the short term, I have nothing to gain by the fruits of any protests (obviously in the long term, everyone does). However, as a Christian, I think that it is important to stand for social justice and against unmitigated evil.

Why we need protests NOW:

1. The tax code is INSANE. I have absolutely no problem with paying taxes and do it willingly. I went to public school, I drive on public roads and once I used my friend's food stamp card to buy food for a party. I don't care if some of my money goes to fecund baby mamas, people on crack or lazy people milking disability (not saying that people on disability are lazy, just that some of them could easily be working). Those people have probably had their share of challenges.

I DO have a problem with my money going to some banker's $500,000 holiday bonus. Or to help companies who produce subpar cars keep afloat. I especially have a problem with corporate tax breaks and undertaxed billionaires. It is amazing that we haven't all taken to the streets already.

2. We have no excuse to feign ignorance after Wikileaks.

3. War for any reason other than defense is immoral and it is too expensive. Put that money in schools. In Spanish One, we watched a movie about the civil war in El Salvador and as a family's home was filled with machine gun fire, a girl asked, " Is that what we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan?"

4. People can get cavity searched for protesting. I just found this out from a primary source.

5. People avoid vital medical treatments because they don't have insurance.

My Advice to Activists

I saw this on Facebook and it made me angry, because I hate when the onus is instantly put on the dissenters:

Our government sucks, so I see no reason to demean people who want to change that, even though they have suspiciously open daytime schedules. However, there are some words of wisdom that I would like to impart on activists:

1. Dressing like circus folk does not help the cause! You know who you are. If people turn on the television and see unbathed men in women's stirrup pants (based on a true story), do you think that they are going to listen to the message? Revolutions need non-activist style people to support them. If you look at pictures of the Cuban revolution, there are tastefully dressed individuals among the revolutionaries. Although those people probably relocated to Miami a few years later.

2. Have a working knowledge of what you are protesting. Don't let CNN interview you about tax inequalities if you don't know who Warren Buffett is.

3. Don't ask for student loan forgiveness, or you will lose me. I have a lot to say on this topic, but it is too late and I need some sleep.

4. Don't be vague about what you want. Refusing to leave until Mubarak stepped down worked pretty well.

This would be more fleshed out if I ever spent more than a half hour on posts.

El lenguaje del amor

2011-10-04T07:51:00.000-07:00

Spanish One Student: How do you say "I want to kiss you?"
Me: Quiero besarte. Writes on board.
Several students write furiously on their hands.
Me: Really? You are going to read off your hand in a romantic moment? Pretends to read off hand in a monotone voice.
Everyone loudly: YES!

In Which Monks Share My Life Philosophy

2011-10-02T14:08:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading this book about St. Francis of Assisi-

I've been a St. Francis fan for a while-I used to hang out at a Franciscan church for solace during my lunch hour when I worked for the swinger. I was a little disappointed, but I guess not that surprised, that he never had a romance with St. Clare of Assisi.

Favorite Excerpt:

"One thing puzzled Francis all his life long, and that was the seemingly great happiness of some publicly known sinners and the gloom that seemed to veil the faces of so many pious souls. There were men and women he knew in Assisi, who lived with an exuberance and carefree spirit that radiated enthusiasm for life, and they 'sinned' with great exhilaration and abandon, never seeming to regret anything of the past and embracing the present with joy. Francis never believed they were the sinners that people thought they were, and he was instinctively drawn to these simple celebrators of life. He could understand why Jesus had associated with sinners and publicans if they were anything like these men and women of Assisi. They were often more honest and more basically good than some pious souls he knew. Perhaps there was a great chasm between piety and goodness. Piety, after all, was something mainly external and goodness was in the heart."

Granted, I don't know how the monk who wrote that could know that, but I approve.

I do have issues with the fact that there was a sticker on the book that said $27.48 and if you peel it off, it says $24.99. The monastery where I bought it obviously graduated from the Deseret Book School of Exorbitant Prices.

Past Life Rejection

2011-10-02T03:25:00.000-07:00

Student: I miss Tupac.
Miss Jill: Are you even old enough to remember Tupac?
Student: Yeah. I was 35 when he died.
Miss Jill: Elaborate please.
Student: I died and then I was reincarcerated (author's note-please read this word carefully).

I was in a bookstore once, trying to kill time, and I read almost an entire book about reincarnation. R.I.P. Borders. In the spirit of full disclosure, it was written by psychic fraud, Sylvia Browne and it was pretty self aggrandizing. She charges like $800 a session to help people remember their past lives as a form of therapy. However, that did not stop me from looking up "past life regression" on youtube and trying to hypnotize myself into remembering a former life. I even convinced my Relief Society president into trying it with me, but that was a total fail. We couldn't stop laughing for long enough to engender true self discovery. I tried it by myself and realized that I was just making up a story of my life as a Scandinavian peasant. I guess that I was inspired by genealogy. Besides, if I do have a past life in the Middle Ages (sorry, Sword and Quill club), I am fine leaving those memories there. Bad hygiene? Bubonic plague? Kidnapped by a janissary? No thanks.

Another Death Request

2011-09-29T17:24:00.000-07:00

My mother just revealed to me that my sister was planning to etch, "I never said that it was easy, I only said that it was worth it" on my tombstone. Even though we have already established that she will predecease me, I am writing this as a precaution. That is on the level of throwing a "Footprints" bookmark into my casket and I assure you that the result will be "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" worthy. You know you that you had nightmares from those in 1989.

Also, I get a lot of complaints about the commenting not working-try using Firefox. Or posting as Anonymous.

In Which Miss Jill Is Glad That None of This Was Funded By Loans

2011-09-28T17:42:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: The content of this post is not applicable to students who also have demanding jobs and children.

There is no group with a greater disparity between perceived busyness and real busyness than college students. They are high intensity stressed a few days a month when they attempt to write a thirty page paper in one night, but the rest of their schedule is filled with what they were doing instead of the paper. And most of those things are completely pointless. BYU was a million times less stressful than my high school and I am about to tell you why.

STUPID WAYS THAT I SPENT MY TIME IN COLLEGE

* During my first month of college, I made up a fake email address: byuhonorcode@hotmail.com. I immediately started e-mailing fraudulent letters, chastising my friends for their violations.

Example:
Dear Sister So and So,
We have recently been informed that you were seen wearing unapproved booty shorts at a local Target on September 7, 1999. We are forced to remind you that you represent the university and its values, both on and off the campus. We will give you this opportunity to repent before action is taken. Please review the Strength of the Youth pamphlet. We love you, sister, and hope that you will overcome this challenge. Please report to ASB 153 on Monday. Insert irrelevant scripture reference.

Love,
The Honor Code Office

I sent lots of them and girls freaked out about the omniscience of the Honor Code office, until they noticed the "hotmail." Well, they actually didn't notice the hotmail-I was so proud of myself that I couldn't keep it a secret.

* I got in an argument with another girl in the dorms over "pantsed," vs. "depantsed," so we called every number in the ward directory in a futile attempt to settle the dispute. A few short years later, in a fit of insanity, I depantsed my friend Bethany in the Santo Domingo International Airport. The Dominicans were confused.

* One of my professors had a sad life, so my friend Tiff and I made him cookies and a card with his picture on it from the faculty website. Then we looked up his address in the phone book and ding dong ditched him. He answered too quickly and Tiff had to hide behind a car until he went back inside. In retrospect, those were the scariest 3 minutes of my life. If my students did that, I would call the police.

* Supersoaking people's goodbye kiss on the dorm steps. Ok, lie, I was laughing in the background.

* Patiently memorized the Spanish lyrics of every Shakira song. I seriously sat around, singing them over and over until I perfected them. If I were more carefree and fun, I would take that talent to a karaoke bar.

* Gave countless interviews to student Daily Universe reporters-I even wrote an outraged letter to the editor after my cousin's interview with the governor was rejected for the front page in favor of an article about fish hatcheries. That letter was stupid enough that I just found it online and refuse to share it, but in my defense, I knew it was lame as I was writing it. I have since moved away from the genre "Mormon sacrament talk humor."

I have no idea what this is about, but it seems to support my thesis:

To be continued...

In Which My Hatred of Smiley Face Emoticons is Avenged

2011-09-27T19:10:00.000-07:00

I just wrote an outline for a good blog at Institute, but I am going to bed, so look for it tomorrow afternoon.

I kind of take pride in the fact that for better or for worse, my personality doesn't really change according to the circumstances. When a woman I know opined that everyone has two faces, I just stared at her blankly. As I was passing that judgment, I forgot that I do sort of have a cheesy teacher alter ego-sometimes my syrupy voice annoys myself (but it is NOT the Relief Society voice). I was really surprised when my former co-workers kept describing me as calm, because I don't see myself like that at all. Teens just bring out weird, Disney Princess type qualities in me. I was surprised today about what transpired when a student approached my desk because he hadn't completed his test. I told him that he could come in during Study Hall to finish it and asked him who his teacher was. He thought for a minute and said, "Ummmm... I don't remember her name. She is the other happy teacher."

God's Avenging Angel of the Playground

2011-09-25T06:51:00.000-07:00

A common thread that has run through every job that I have had until now is that employees do not seem to have a vested interest in the success of the institution. People would always roll their eyes and say, "Only at fill in the blank with the workplace" or, "Classicfill in the blank with the workplace." People even did that at my job in Utah, which I really liked. I have not heard one comment like that at Catholic school, which is really motivating. I haven't even heard a kid say that the school sucks.

I am pretty careful about what I write about work on here, because my school from Honduras was less than enthusiastic about my coverage of the laxity of their hiring processes-let's just say that they once employed someone who appeared on America's Most Wanted. I still will be, but I think that now I can write a little more openly about the extraordinary saga that was the Turkish school. If you are curious, I would implore you to click on this link (the link is the word "this"-in spite of good advice, I can't figure out how to change the link's color). So here's a quick story.

There were very diverse opinions about work ethic amongst the staff and the five or six teachers who regularly attended school had to substitute constantly. I would be surprised if I went a week without substituting. I substituted sixth grade once and took them to the neighborhood park. For some reason, in spite of the fact that school was not yet over, some high schoolers were hanging out there without an adult. One of the students was throwing water on everyone, which invoked the ire of his tough Bosnian classmate. The subsequent beat down lasted about thirty seconds, while some neighborhood kids gathered footage. I may or may not be on youtube somewhere, encouraging them to stop. The defeated party was so embarrassed by the ease of his annihilation that he ran away, while yelling, "I will expletive deleted you up!"

After I took the sixth graders back to school, I went straight to the office and recounted the violent events for the principal. He thought about it for a moment and said, "Sometimes in life, God uses other people to send you a message. In this beating, the message that He was sending was, 'You are annoying.'"

Abrupt subject change

Yesterday I received my new drivers license and was excited to see that instead of showing my birthday as February 11, it said December 11. It feels so good to be in my twenties again, even if it is only in the eyes of the Commonwealth of Virginia. In 2011 I have had licenses in Illinois, New York and Virginia. The state of Illinois is so disorganized that my voter registration from 1999 is still valid, in spite of the fact that I have been concurrently registered to vote in Utah, New York and now Virginia and have not lived there in twelve years. I discovered this in 2008 when I was at my parent's house in November and decided to try voting. You're welcome, Obama. They don't ask for identification, so someone could have come and pretended to be my sister (who lives in Texas), because she was on the list too.

Miss Jill's Lexicon of Slang

2011-09-21T15:21:00.001-07:00

This first comment is irrelevant to the rest of the post, but today I was teaching sixth period and my contact unexpectedly flew out of my right eye. A student in the front row got excited and shouted, "She's blind. Everybody run!"

Because I spent four years teaching non-native English speakers, I have picked up the habit of constantly over enunciating (I originally spelled this "annunciate"-too much Catholic School, I guess). I never noticed it, but an actress pointed it out and she was right. For that reason, I think it is really funny to use slang once in a while, because it sounds so unnatural coming out of my mouth. Kind of like Cousin Mitt inexplicably saying "Who let the dogs out?" on Martin Luther King Day (but not as offensive):

Listen carefully-his tone of voice doesn't change at all.

I am quick to ask for a definition every time that I hear a new word and the kids are often incredulous at the paucity of my vocabulary. I learned my lesson about pretending to know things in seventh grade, when a girl said, "I love Alice Cooper" and I replied, "Me too. She is great!"

Alice Cooper:

I teach this special class about developing social skills every Wednesday and that is a good vocabulary opportunity. After I asked for a few definitions in a row, a girl warned, "Stop! She will know too much!" I don't want to keep this knowledge to myself, so I am going to share a few vernacular nuggets. I have received some help from urbandictionary.com in my studies.

Bougie- Someone who aspires to a higher economic status or anything perceived as upscale from a working class point of view. Derived from "bourgeoisie." I like to use this to describe my social justice friends when they have a sweet ride and live in luxury condos.

O.D. (New York)- To overdo or exaggerate. If your teacher gives you 200 math problems for homework, that's o.d.

Jonin (DC)- It means to bother or tease someone. How I learned it, "Miss, those other kids are jonin me!" Me: I need a definition of "jonin" before I can help you with this issue.

Tight- This usage depends where you are. I think it is usually positive, as in, "Your new car is TIGHT!" Or "that new student is really tight. I wonder if he would date me." However, in New York the kids always used it to make fun of people. For example, if you raised your hand and said something weird and the teacher said you were incorrect, "You tight!" If your girlfriend breaks up with you, "You tight!" If you stepped on a ketchup packet and it squirted onto your pants, "You tight!"

Abuse Case (New York, I think)- Someone who does a lot of embarrassing stuff, like hooking up with tons of different guys, which forces everyone to talk about them in a negative manner.

I am falling asleep, to be continued.

Identify Yourself, Purveyor of Urban Legends

2011-09-20T17:02:00.000-07:00

Ok, I talked to someone recently who adamantly insisted that Magic Johnson cured himself of AIDS by having doctors do so many blood transfusions that it was completely eradicated from his body. I was dubious, but forgot to google it until right now. Who were you and how do you support your claims? I have too many weird conversations in a typical month to remember. You may contact me by text or e-mail to save face.

R.I.P. Miss Jill

2011-09-19T15:12:00.000-07:00

First-I have shared this with a few people, but want to make it public knowledge that through some malicious clerical error/I don't pay enough attention when filling out forms, I am listed on my Virginia license as a non-organ donor. That is a mistake. I have felt strongly about this topic since my second grade teacher, Ms. Turnquist, was the recipient of a liver in the late eighties. If my wishes are contested, please print this blog entry as proof. I also feel like I should share my express wishes regarding my funeral.

My Funeral Plans

* Classical music or hymns only (but nothing upbeat about sunshine or mentioning Kolob). If a teen performs a breathy rendition of an EFY/Mormon pop song, don't be surprised if the coffin flies open and something freaky goes down. There will be the same result if my hair is styled with bangs, a butch 'do or I am put in a t-shirt or a fashion scarf.

* Serving ham to mourners after my funeral would be blatantly disrespecting my memory. Ham grosses me out and when someone was eating it on the subway, I was forced to switch cars. It is also highly likely that some Muslims will be present. Vegan desserts are also prohibited.It would be more appropriate to serve something I actually eat regularly, like a green smoothie buffet. Or let's make it easy and get Thai food catered.

* Don't feel like you have to hold back your grief as a testament to your religious convictions. If you feel it necessary to drop to your knees to scream, "NOOOOO!!!!!!!," please do. It is not the time for restraint.

* If you are not that nice to me or you think that I am the eccentric spinster relative, please do not front like you are the chief mourner. You may come if you show remorse for what you have done. I have already assigned some people to regulate that.

* No boring talks from religious leaders who don't know me. If anyone contests my wishes, please change the venue. Any spiritual messages must directly reference Jesus.

* The first thirty minutes will be dedicated to testimonials about how my picture drawing wrought miracles in their lives. The next hour will be someone with a midwestern accent reading excerpts from my blog. I would assign my sister, Jr., but I think that I will outlive her. Three children under three cannot increase a person's longevity and I have taken fish oil every day for four years. The last thirty minutes will consist of a world capitals geography contest. The winner will receive all of my books (hope you like to read about foreign countries and mental diseases). The loser will receive my international doll collection.

* Feel free to photoshop any pictures of me in the slideshow tribute. Actually, please just put my head on Kim Kardashian's body.

The executor of these requests will be my oldest living sibling. I am glad that my wishes are now known, but this is making me sad, so the end.

Jump, Little Hobbit: Asia Edition

2011-09-13T18:02:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure that I have previously written that my baby brother places items out of my reach and jeers, "Jump, little hobbit!" Life has its difficulties when you experience it from a sixth-grade altitude, but when I lived in Honduras, this issue all but disappeared. I remember being in a room at church once and realizing with glee that I was the tallest person in the room (5'1"). I also always thought of nail salons as a similar sanctuary from a cruel world filled with overgrown beasts. I was wrong. Last week, I went to get a pedicure and as she was working, the technician looked at my sandals and scowled. "What is this? Very small shoe. Very small shoe. For child." Whenever the adult six 6 is too big and there is nothing lower, I have fantasized about the shoe stores of Ho Chi Minh City-they had to have a great selection of miniature shoes. Maybe not. A dream died as she laboriously scraped my heel.

You Would Enjoy Driving In DC If...

2011-09-13T17:16:00.000-07:00

The first few days that I drove here left me with the lingering sensation of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder-it seriously took me about a half an hour to calm down. The low point was when I had to call a friend from some random industrial park in McLean to beg her to look up where I was and how to get to her without getting back on the freeway. In my defense, I haven't really driven for years and there was a monsoon all last week.

* You want to constantly relive that dazed feeling you got in the corn maze as a BYU coed.
* Your turn signal is broken and you can't afford to fix it. Not necessary.
* You turn on your emergency lights and slowly cruise for miles... just because.
* Your x-ray vision can see through the trees hanging over street signs.
* You drive a city bus and see no need to check your blind spot.
* You quickly glide across four lanes of traffic blindfolded, hoping for the best.
* You like taking three different freeways to get to another suburb ten miles away.
* You enjoy circling the block, quietly praying that a parking spot will materialize. Actually, the situation here is much better than in Brooklyn (try finding parking on Friday night after sundown), but people complain about it.

All the praying that I do while driving has taken me to a whole new level of spirituality.

The Mubarak/Eagle Scout Connection

2011-09-12T15:14:00.000-07:00

I think that it stems from too many years spent in honors classes, but I secretly harbor some warm feelings towards hacktivists.* I am curious, but did anyone else have the experience that in A.P. classes, most of the girls were socially mainstream, but you wouldn't be surprised if half of the guys harnessed their precocious knowledge of chemistry towards some nefarious end? As I don't really care if people are socially mainstream, please do not interpret this as an insult-those are the kinds of people who end up inventing Facebook or something.

I started reading about Anonymous, a collective of hacktivists, when I was doing research on Scientology. Since I have to ask teenagers to help me whenever I want to make Facebook changes (one reason it was useful to live with the NYOM), I can't really explain what exactly they do, but a component of it is called denial-of-service attacks. In support of Wikileaks, they took down both the Visa and Mastercard websites for a day. Some other targets have been the Sony Playstation Network, oppressive Arab regimes and the governments of Turkey, Brazil, Zimbabwe and Australia. In short, they are a pretty awe-inspiring coalition of nerds. This isn't meant to be a treatise on the virtues of their cause, but you get the idea. Mostly I am just impressed with their hacking skills. And maybe the government shouldn't be doing so much stuff that they need to hide.

So I was doing some light reading on the topic the other day and came across another victim of Anonymous. He is a California teen named McKay Hatch, who is the founder of an organization called "The No Cussing Club."

You might enjoy a short clip of his work:

Ok, I know my people when I see them and it was easy to confirm that little McKay was Mormon. He is just following in the proud tradition of sending a petition to your local department store teeming with immodest clothing/studios who make R-rated movies, writing a press release and then making sure that the New Era finds out about your enormous courage. Incidentally, I have so much clothes that if they made more modest clothing, I would probably have to rent a storage unit. I have never even worn anything skanky over a white t-shirt.

So Anonymous hacked the dad's e-mail and found out that they were charging $1500 per No Cussing Club speaking engagement and hoped to earn $2.5 million from the enterprise. I have worked in enough high schools to know how well this would be received in an assembly. Then they leaked their home address, which resulted in profanity laced hate mail and dozens of pizza and Playboy deliveries. It is sad that a teen got pulled into this, but come on, why are you trying to get rich off your child's social suicide?

Source: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Internet_group_Anonymous_hacks_No_Cussing_Club's_website,_owner's_e-mail_account

* Per Wikipedia- Hacktivism (a portmanteau of hack and activism) is the use of computers and computer networks as a means of protest to promote political ends. Much as hacking can mean both constructive and destructive activitites, activism similarly includes both explicitly non-violent action (from the models of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi) and violent revolutionary activities (Che Guevara). If hacking as "illegally breaking into computers" is assumed, then hacktivism could be defined as "the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends".*

In Which I Am Not An Activist, But Play One In My Social LIfe

2011-09-10T12:42:00.000-07:00

When I resigned from College Republicans leadership in 2001, I vowed to never become politically active again. There were too many annoying herbs* with Messiah complexes who thought that urging people to vote Republican in Utah was shaking up the political landscape. For the last few years, I have liked to think of myself as a mild mannered school teacher, living a quiet teen-filled life, unhampered by party alliances. A productive cog in the wheel of American society, if you will. My job has kind of been how I rationalize that I am fulfilling the social justice requirements of Christian belief and things have been pretty peaceful. A cursory reading of the Economist every week/The Daily Show is as much as I really want to think about it.

However, I seem to have fallen in with an activist crowd as of late. You know, the people who taped their mouths closed in front of BYU and never seemed to graduate? Yeah. So on Friday, I went to an anarchist meeting out of curiosity. Some highlights:

* We were 30+ years under the median age of the attendees. Great feeling. It reminded me that my parents were too young to have been hippies, because even they would have felt young there, in spite of qualifying for AARP.

* A glance around the room revealed that I wear too much makeup to be an activist and I'm pretty sure that I was the only person present rocking business casual. I'm sorry, but I will never think that an anti-nuclear proliferation t-shirt (or any t-shirt) constitutes an outfit.

* The speaker was a former nun who married a former priest and went to prison for three years for dismantling weapons. During the Q & A, someone asked a question about war tax resistance and she said that she had never really had any taxable income to worry about. There are some perks to living on a commune, I suppose.

* The basic idea behind war tax resistance is that people don't want to pay taxes to a government that will then use the money to fund a war. I get that. Once I paid tithing and wrote on the form, "For the express purpose of heating this building," because it was always freezing. If you have a job that takes out income tax, that can be difficult. What they do is claim a dozen dependents so that they will not get a refund. Then, when April comes around, they write a letter to the IRS explaining why they refuse to pay. One of the men said, "I said that I had 13 children -who knows, I might have that many around the world." My friend audibly booed. This seems to be risky, because a few participants announced the dates of their impending trials and implored the group to pray for them.

* Something must have resonated with me, because my friend's husband kept referencing, "the point in time when Jill was nodding vigorously."

I will say that I have started wondering at what point it starts becoming immoral to not oppose your corrupt government, especially when the actions of said government impact the entire world.

* Herb: Nerd; dork; geek; generally uncool person. Originated in early 1980s Burger King ad campaign in which a nerd named HERB was featured. The term was subsequently embraced by the hip hop generation.

Guy 1: Yo, I saw Melvin in the bathroom crying because he got a 93 on the math test!

Guy 2: Word? That kid is a total HERB!

From urbandictionary.com

In Which The Dog Ate Much More Than Homework

2011-09-04T18:05:00.000-07:00

Ok, I have a lot of things to catch up on now that I'm not living on the couches of benevolent friends/living in the Hilton (my dad felt sorry for me). My new job is pretty fun. On the first day of school, shortly after the beginning of sixth period, I was introducing myself when one of the students yelled, "The ground is shaking!" Maybe you are from California and think that you are really bad a, but I became scared, mostly because I missed orientation, did not know the emergency procedures (or the kids) and mid-adolescents are not renowned for keeping cool in a crisis. Although there were some broken windows and a lot of hyperventilating, we pulled through. I must be more aware of my own mortality at age 30 than I was at 25, because I was in an earthquake with kids when I taught in Honduras and I just started laughing.

One of my Bosnian students at Turkish school gave me an engraved pen with my birthstone in it and I let one of my students borrow it. I told him that it was important to me and that he had to make sure to give it back to me before he left. He asked, "What if there is another earthquake and I have to run for it?" I replied, "Throw it behind you as you run away." I got distracted when class ended and he absconded with my pen. I can't judge this, as I still have a pair of slippers that belong to the Mesa, Arizona temple. The next day I inquired about the location of my pen and he said, "It is gone. On the way home from school, I got attacked by a pit bull. I threw all of my belongings on the ground and ran."
"Were there any witnesses?"
"The pit bull."
I conceded.

Unbeliezable: An Ethnography

2011-08-29T15:49:00.000-07:00

My friend, Tatiana, g-chatted me today about her recent trip to Belize:

Tatiana: They have a new law in Belize where if you get someone pregnant who isn't 18, you have to marry them or go to jail for one year!

I have a story for you. When I think of a wake, I think somber, but no. The wakes have loud music, sometimes a DJ, a bar, it's loud and crazy. The body was just right in the middle of the yard and everyone was getting drunk, listening to Bob Marley.

Anyway Ja Rule's (nickname) sister that I was staying with wouldn't go to the wake even though it was her cousin, because she has a baby. Who cares, you ask? Well, apparently if you look at a dead body, and then at a baby, evil spirits will enter the baby and the baby will die.

Miss Jill: what who has this happened to?

Tatiana: Good question. She made me promise I wouldn't look at it and her brother who came the next day wouldn't even come into the house because he had looked at the body.
OH! I have another one!
Her baby has a swollen belly button, like it's herneated or something.
Her doctor told her it's from the gas that built up in the baby 4 months earlier when the mom didn't eat for 2 days before her c-section. So what she's doing is taking a coin over the belly button because that is supposed to heal it.

In Which Miss Jill Shares Hard Earned Economic Advice: Part VII

2011-08-28T17:45:00.000-07:00

I have previously mentioned that wherever I go, I quickly become a member of the city's tourism board. Meaning, I am constantly accosted for directions. I once drew a Hasidic man a very detailed map to LaGuardia from South Brooklyn, because he didn't want to believe me when I told him that he couldn't make it there in 20 minutes to catch his flight. Since I have only been a resident of the DC area for 8 days, I have not been very helpful recently.

On Thursday as I was exciting the metro, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw a middle aged woman sporting leopard print pants. "Ma'am, could you tell me where to go to cash in a lottery ticket? I won $100.00."

"Wow, that's awesome. But I have no idea where to go."

"Do you play the lottery?"

"No," I replied, remembering how scandalized we were when my cousins bought lottery tickets during a family reunion at Nauvoo in the early '90s (you know who you are). "I've never tried it."

"Ok, girl, I'm going to tell you something that you need to remember. When were you born?"

"February 11, 1981."

"Ok, there you go. Always play 0211. Or 0281. Or 1181. Trust me."

"Ok, thanks!"

"No, really, I have already won twice this week. Never fails." Then I followed her, bought some tickets and went on to live a life of dissolution. J/k, Mom.

I'm Ghana Need To Buy Some Headphones

2011-08-27T18:05:00.000-07:00

Until Hurricane Irene, I have been traveling between NYC and DC every weekend and the bus is starting to get a little old. Last week I found myself sitting by an affable tourist from Ghana in traditional dress. Usually I am all about talking to whoever, but I had been sleeping on couches all week and I needed some sleep. A few minutes into my peaceful slumber, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I drowsily responded, "Uhh?"

"Miss, when I came over on the plane from Ghana, I didn't go pee once."

I forgave him for not knowing my aversion to that phrase, but it didn't really seem like time sensitive information. Especially since the the bus ride turned out to be seven heinous hours long.

When I fell asleep again, I was awakened by a sonorous voice. "Miss, I think that your blonde hair is a real treat."

"Thanks."

At regular intervals, I was jolted awake by, "America is America," "I bought two cars," "America is America (intentionally repeated)" and "once a taxi driver in Long Island charged me $450.00." Ok, the last one was kind of intriguing.

600,000 Random Strangers?

2011-08-21T19:54:00.000-07:00

Well, I have a weird announcement to make. I wrote previously that I gave myself a deadline of August 1 to start figuring out my life. I started randomly applying to jobs (I think only five or so) and within a week I had an offer at a Catholic school in DC and I started last week. That is a pretty fast change, even for me. I told my friend what had happened and she said, “Oh, I have a place for you to live” and sent me a link. I clicked on it enthusiastically, but then saw a picture of her couch. It is my current home.

To say that I am despondent about leaving New York would be an understatement, but I feel pretty strongly that it is the right decision. The Catholics have been really welcoming and I think that it will be a good opportunity to learn. So in honor of my move, I would like to host a New York/DC* showdown:

Friendlier strangers: DC. This is not even close. Men open the door for you like it is BYU and I haven’t wanted to have a street showdown with anyone in days.

Hipper Fashion: NYC. Also not even close. Everyone in DC dresses like someone’s mom, which is how I dress, so I feel at home.

More efficient public transportation: DC. Again, this is based on three days. In spite of MTA’s aggressive publicity campaign, I have yet to hear anyone who has a positive opinion about its daily operations. Both seem to employ announcers with diction impediments.

More entertaining public transportation: NYC. Where is DC hiding the break dancers/people reciting Obama poems/homeless people who didn’t make it to the bathroom in time/people yelling at each other about disrespect/evangelists/people of nearly indiscernible gender in fishnets (my tip is to look at their hands), etc.?

Most rats on fertility drugs: NYC

Less people all up in your grill: DC. You can find a seat at Starbucks without intimidating people with your evil eye.

More nationalities represented in your field of vision in any given time: NYC, more specifically South Brooklyn.

Less artistic people wearing a glazed expression: DC

That is all I have for now-I need more experience in order to expand the list. This is the tiredest I have been in my entire life, so bye

* Three days seems long enough to make sweeping generalization about a place.

In Which Amish School Health Classes May Be Missing Some Key Vocabulary Words

2011-08-06T18:10:00.000-07:00

I just got back from Amish territory in Pennsylvania a few minutes ago. I thought that you would like to know the name of one of the small towns there:

The Secret Family of the American Teenager

2011-08-02T04:20:00.000-07:00

When we were younger, my little brother Ty was ashamed to be seen with the family. This is so unusual because he is definitely the momma's boy of the clan-in the middle of his honeymoon he brought his bride back to the house to say hi and to have some homemade lasagna. Sometimes when there were half days in high school, I would stop by the elementary school with fast food or something special for his lunch and he would not make eye contact or say anything to me. He just grabbed the bag from my hand and kept walking. The funny thing is that I knew all of his basketball friends from the neighborhood and they always greeted me effusively. My mom, the love of his life, met the same fate. But Ty made up for it when he went a school year without spending his lunch money. He put it all in a jar and saved up so much money that we were doing fun stuff with it all summer.

My other brother, Baby Troy, is completely different. He just does his own thing and doesn't care at all what anyone thinks. He could sit alone in the lunchroom at school and wouldn't even care (that would have been my worst nightmare). It took me 25 years to get to that point of enlightenment. My parents decided to enroll him in Catholic School and when my dad went in, the principal told him that they were hiring teachers and asked if he knew anyone. As I am currently looking for a new life path, he told him that he would ask me if I were interested. I can't really see myself moving home to Chicago at age 30, but it would have been an easy solution. For all I know, this blog might be "Miss Jill Madrid" in a few months. Later that day, I received a text from Baby Troy that said, "You gonna be my teacher?" I responded, "Wouldn't that be your worst nightmare?" He answered, "No, not if they like u."

In Which The Local Elders Are Inspired By The Book of Mormon Musical

2011-07-31T04:30:00.001-07:00

As I was sitting on the train on Friday, an operatic tenor behind me started to sing loudly,

"Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah!
Roma-Roma-ma-ah!
Ga-ga-ooh-la-la!
Want your bad romance"

It reminded me of when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang "La Bamba." The voice kept distracting me and I couldn't carry on a conversation. He paused and I hoped that Bad Romance was the only number, but then heard, "Look at this stuff. Isn't it neat? Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?" My friend remarked, "American people are so weird. They are just singing on the subway and doing a weird dance." I turned around to see the offender and beheld Mormon missionaries. I shook my head and said, "Of course."

Elder Placido continued his act with "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?," "A Whole New World" and "Paparazzi" as the Chinese woman next to him looked on, in horror and disbelief. His companion stonily stared forward, willing himself back to happier times (Timpview High School Senior Prom 2010: Starry Night, gazing into the eyes of a girl wearing a bridesmaid dress from Allyse's Bridal). He probably enjoyed this serenade all day, every day.

Recap of What I Am Doing Instead of Making Major Life Decisions, Part One

2011-07-30T09:13:00.000-07:00

First, thanks for all of the texts and e-mails that I have received regarding the aforementioned Dr. Seuss incident. Except for when my friend brought up Son of Sam last night right before I got on the subway, I have recovered well.

As some of you know, I don't know what to do with my life, so I am delaying any decision making until August 1 (tomorrow). My friend told me to post a poll on my blog, but I don't know if I am ready to leave my fate in the hands of what Google Analytics tells me are primarily BYU students (no offense). If you are interested in what someone in my position does with her time, here is a short rundown.

MY WEEK

Movies:
Sarah's Key-Holocaust movie, like twenty percent of any movies that come out.
Life, Above All-This is about social pressure and AIDS in South Africa. A+
Snowflower and the Secret Fan-Decent, but after this condescending guy berated me for liking The Tourist, I realized that I liked almost anything set in a foreign country.
The Fighter-Every character in this movie would look at home in my neighborhood. Due to colloquial language, this movie
would be about five minutes long from Clean Flicks, so don't try. But I liked it.
True Grit-I only saw half of this because I rented it on iTunes (gift card) and I didn't realize that you had to watch it in 24 hours. This does not work when you usually watch movies twenty minutes at a time, while putting on makeup. My little brother was named after a Louis L'amour character, so of course I like westerns.
Winter's Bone-This one might be my favorite and I kind of want to go to the Ozarks to see if people really live like that. We drove through them when I was nine, but I did not have an anthropological interest at the time.

I am kind of ashamed/proud that I watched so many movies in one week. And it is not my parent's fault that I watch rated R, but at least take into account the this list does not contain movies like "The Hangover."

Museum:
The Natural History Museum-Ok, I every time I go to a science museum I wonder why people enjoy staring at sedimentary rocks, but I'm glad that there is an audience for that. My science teacher friend is visiting from Honduras and I think that she felt a little bad that I was staring into space, reminiscing about happier times instead of looking at a stuffed bobcat. I did like the floor with the cultural exhibits.

Play:
This is my third summer in New York, but I have never been to Shakespeare in the Park. The line starts forming at 6:00 a.m. and I had to leave my house at 4:15, because Brooklyn trains are crazy at that hour. I was still a little bit late. They start handing out tickets at 1:00 p.m., so it is kind of a time consuming process, but if there is one thing that I definitely have, it is time. And it is free.

The good thing was that I could get wireless, so we could watch movies/youtube videos. The bad thing was that we were sitting between a couple who looked like they had sprung from a crack house and an effeminate, loquacious dad and son. The crack house lady got up in my grill and tried to start arguing with me about something, which made me wonder why someone who was incapable of conjugating "to be" properly was so keen on Shakespeare tickets. Her male companion had a woeful lack of teeth and was a haggard doppelganger for my least favorite celebrity, Flava Flav. As she played Mario Brothers on her DS with the sound cranked up, I realized that I was witnessing entrepreneurship-I typed "Shakespeare" into Craigslist and saw them selling for $50 a piece.

As we were waiting, a young woman approached and introduced herself. She said that she was working for a new television quiz show that combined a scavenger hunt through the streets of New York and a trivia quiz. She asked if we were interested in participating and I said, "No way," and gestured to my friend, who has probably been on every television show that regularly films in New York. My friend told her that she would be out of town on the dates of filming. Her enthusiasm was not dampened, however, and she started to ask us random trivia questions. Homegirl totally knew my weakness. I started getting into it and she said enticingly, "I will ask you more questions if you agree to be screened for casting."
"You can ask more questions," I responded.
"Do you agree to be on the show?"
"No." She had a camera and if she thought that she was going to use it to capture my unkempt image in workout clothes and a ponytail, she was too optimistic to live here. It was the second time that I have refused to be on t.v. in the recent past (see the post about Sesame Street), I think that I can safely state that I have no aspirations for stardom.

TO BE CONTINUED

The Exorcism of Dr. Seuss Clothes

2011-07-26T22:10:00.000-07:00

Do not read this if you are my mother or my friend's mother.

I went to Shakespeare in the Park tonight and it kept raining, so it didn't end until after eleven. That is not close to my house. I got off to transfer trains in Brooklyn and a man on the platform was wearing this shirt:

He turned around and stared at me with the creepiest face of loathing I have ever seen. As we don't know each other, I thought that maybe he was looking at someone behind me. The train came and I walked to another subway car and sat down. I started reading and when I looked up, the man was standing on the other side of the car, still glaring at me. I still thought that I was imagining it at that point and closed my eyes. When I opened them, he was sitting in the seat across from me. He then said something indiscernible and repeatedly did what I now know is called a chin rake (obscene gesture). He did it several times and growled at me. The only other people in the car were peacefully sleeping Chinese men.

I stood up to get off, even though it wasn't my stop. He did too. I sat back down. He did too. His eyes were doing something odd and he looked up to the ceiling, just as we came to a stop. I took advantage of his wandering gaze and ran out of the car, into the next one. At the next stop, he exited his car and stood on the platform. Unfortunately, he saw me and extended his finger and snarled. Still pointing, he started to approach the car, but then backed off. That was the end. I can't decide if this kind of behavior is reflective of satanic possession or drugs, but I'm still creeped out, which is why I am writing this at 1:31 a.m.

In Which Emulating Miss Jill Makes All of Your Romantic Dreams/Nightmares Come True

2011-07-25T19:49:00.001-07:00

Ok, so my long time readers know that everything that I draw happens. Some of you have me to thank for your significant other (who is not addicted to pornography-I make sure to specify that). Maybe some of you immigrated to the United States after I drew you in a plane. And mom, you know that I saved the family name through my artistry. Ok, I have made a few errors, but that usually happens when I go against my instinct and draw something unrealistic that someone wants.

This is probably bad, but I am gaining disciples. My friend had texted a guy and he didn't respond and she got really frustrated. Out of desperation, she drew a picture of him texting her on the current date. She waited and waited and eventually gave up hope. Then, he texted her at 11:50.

Ok this is a little inappropriate. You have been warned. I drew my friend with tons of money and at first it seemed to be working. He had some new job opportunities and thanked me. However, a few weeks later he called me and said that we needed to talk. He sounded distraught. A man at work approached him and offered to get him an apartment and pay all of his expenses if they could be together. The problem is that my friend is not gay. He said that right after it happened, he yelled, "This was Jill's fault!" Of course, this ended up in Human Resources.

In Which Beggars Can Be Choosers

2011-07-22T04:47:00.000-07:00

In a city with so many potential benefactors, I guess the homeless people can afford to be picky. Once my friend offered a homeless guy a bacon cheeseburger and he rejected it, on account of the bacon. All I could think of was that we were in Harlem, which is a Nation of Islam stronghold.

Yesterday on the A train, a group of three girls brought a boombox on the train and did a choreographed robot dance. They were really good and about 80 percent of the car started waving around dollars. The last time I had seen this happen was in early 2009 when a young man recited a poem about Obama bringing the country out of darkness. The train was pretty far uptown, so the crowd was very appreciative.

After their performance, a homeless man in a wheelchair started whining, "Please help me! I haven't eaten for days and I am starving. Please, does anyone have food or money?" If any of you have seen the Mexican movie, La Misma Luna/Under the Same Moon, the guy looked exactly like the blond junkie who tried to sell poor Carlitos into slavery on a street full of prostitutes. That scene annoys me so much, because otherwise, it is a really school appropriate movie. Everyone was kind of unenthusiastic about him, because utilizing whining is unusual on New York subways-usually beggars have a little more dignity than that and share a preprepared, respectful speech. And ten seconds earlier, they had given a lot of money to the dancers.

I felt kind of bad for him, so I offered him half of a burrito that was leftover from lunch. He sneered at me with disdain and said, "Sorry, I only accept prepackaged food from strangers with a hermetically* sealed wrapper. I absolutely cannot take that. Do you have something else that I could have? A granola bar?" I actually did have a Clif bar, but he had fallen out of my good graces. I started to doubt the veracity of his claims. Did he really need that wheelchair?

The lady sitting across from me started laughing really loudly and said, "Boy, if you really be hungry, you be taking that food. You is lying! A hungry person don't reject no food."

I said, "I agree. I might even take that if someone offered it to me. It was pretty good."

The woman continued loudly laughing and he started to roll away in shame. Another girl said, "Do you think she is carrying around a poisoned burrito, waiting patiently for someone to ask for it?"

Unable to withstand the accusations, he quickly rolled away. In ignominy.

* Ok, he didn't say the word hermetic, but I thought it would be funnier if he did. He actually just said, "sealed."

C-List Celebrity Sighting Number 4,152

2011-07-19T06:01:00.000-07:00

I guess if I want lurkers to come out of the woodwork and comment, I have to write about controversial Mormon issues. But I think that enough people are doing that already, better than I could. Dumb stories are my calling in life. Yesterday my friend Stef from the previous story and I went to a Starbucks in Manhattan and the air conditioner was at about 35 degrees Fahrenheit. Stef got really cold and whispered, "I am going to go outside for a minute. Check your phone, I will text you about a celebrity sighting."

A few minutes later, I received a text that said:

"The girl with dark curly hair is the Pepsi girl! When she was little, w the dimples, remember?"

I googled, "Pepsi girl" and there she was:

When I was looking for this picture, I noticed that a lot of people think that she is scary in the same way that clowns are scary-one blogger opined that she was as scary as Black Swan.

Stef came back in and I said, "I'm not so sure about that." I discreetly angled my computer so that she could not see that her image was all over my screen and we tried to compare. Stef asserted that she was positive that it was her and as she has been a movie extra multiple times and dated someone from a cell phone commercial, I will trust her expert opinion. The biggest celebrity I have seen was from the Mormon temple movie.

We forgot about it until the Pepsi girl stood up, paused in front of our table to make out with a blond guy, and left. We lamented that she was not a bigger star, because that would have been a good photo to sell to the paparazzi.

In Which My Friend Stef Successfully Channels Matilda

2011-07-18T04:43:00.000-07:00

The other day my friend Stef and I met at Barnes and Noble to work on some projects and we wanted to sit at a table in the cafe, because we had computers. That is not always a realistic desire in Manhattan-everything is always crowded, at every point of the day. We stood in the middle for a minute, looking around, hoping that someone would get up. In spite of the fact that I constantly do this myself, I was irritated that so many people were sitting solo at tables. I guess that feeling was reflected in my expression, because one of the lone men started packing up his stuff.

We started celebrating and I asked him if he were leaving.
"Yes," he answered in an Irish brogue. "I can't handle your withering glare."
"Uhhhh.... that is just my face at rest (lie)."
"Well, I can't deal with it, so I'm leaving."
"Sorry, that look was more directed towards the entire room."

This exchange sounds acrimonious, but it wasn't at all. There was laughing involved, but I can't remember if it was just on our side. As he started to walk away, Stef said, "Thanks Jay!"

Jay looked a little shaken up and responded, "How did you know my name?"
"I read it on your cup."
"Oh, I thought maybe it was because I was reading this." He showed us a book entitled something like, "Using The Power of the Mind." He rushed away, unnerved.

An Afternoon Picnic With the PLO

2011-07-15T05:36:00.002-07:00

A high percentage of the rich people in Honduras as transplanted Arabs, who strangely enough are called "Turcos" by everyone. Honduras is not the safest country on earth, especially for rich people with questionable sources of income. Quite a few of the kids had personal bodyguards, which I think were necessary. I remember one of my students once said to me, "I love the summer, because we always go to Palestina. It is so fun to go somewhere where I can walk around outside on the street and feel safe." You know you have security issues if you daydream about your idyllic summers in the West Bank.

I was reminded of this, because I have a Honduran coworker who comes to New York every summer and I saw her yesterday. The first time she came to New York, we went to Barnes and Noble and then I suggested that we go to Union Square Park for a minute. She quickly became uncomfortable and asked, "Are you playing some kind of joke on me?" I was confused and denied it. Then she said, "Ok, I want to leave. This isn't funny. Why are you taking me to this place with so many crazy people?" Because I was living in Harlem at the time, I think that I was a little too inured to crack pipes and didn't notice that anything was amiss. So I've been wondering if my strange journey through life has permanently altered my perception of the world. I don't know if I even think anything/anyone is weird anymore. And I can't talk to a boring person for more than five minutes, which is social suicide at church sometimes. Like some people worry about financial ruin or the Apocalypse, I am terrified of having 50 years of insipid conversations ahead of me. Ok, this is not an introspective blog, so the end.

Several hours later... hmmm... I decided that was kind of mean. Not that I am the most interesting person alive-I just can't handle boring convos about shampoo or something

In Which Miss Jill Exploits a Teen's Encyclopedic Knowledge of Harry Potter for Entertainment Purposes

2011-07-15T05:36:00.001-07:00

Ok, this is a reprint in honor of Harry Potter 7.5.

One day I casually picked up my anonymous relative, "Amy's" copy of Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone and noticed that the inside cover was filled with tally marks. I asked her what they stood for and she replied, “Oh, I make a mark every time I finish reading it.” I discretely counted them. 87.

I opened up to a random page. I read, “A letter?”

Amy replied, “repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall.”

Miss Jill: Harry learnt that…

Amy: There were seven hundred ways of committing a Quidditch foul and that all of them had happened during a World cup match in 1473.

Miss Jill: Ronald Weasley…

Amy: Who has always been overshadowed by his brothers, sees himself standing alone, the best of all of them.

In spite of the fact that my grandpa had recently chastised us all for knowing Harry Potter better than the Book of Mormon, I stared at Amy in humble awe. It seemed like something that should be capitalized on, so I took her to a Harry Potter trivia contest at the local Borders. As we walked through the discount book tables, I eyed the competition. Fifty percent of the participants were children. The other fifty percent were graying Woodstock alumni, which made me a little apprehensive. I looked down at Amy to see if she was also feeling pre-match jitters, but she was eyeing her rivals with condescending confidence.

After several rounds of intense questioning, only Amy and a sextegenarian donning a crocheted sweater vest over a tie-dyed t-shirt remained. The Borders employee’s braces gleamed playfully as she asked the Grandma, “How many Knuts are in a Sickle?”

Her eyes dashed back and forth in panic and in desperation, she looked to her silver pony tailed companion for inspiration. He shrugged dejectedly. Expelliarmus. Amy’s face lit up. Twenty-nine,” she shrieked triumphantly.

Homecoming Hardships

2011-07-12T06:29:00.000-07:00

Don't get mad at me Utahns, but I really hated living in Provo. One fall my sister and I were so depressed to be back that my dad paid for us to stay in a hotel in Salt Lake for a night before the semester started. Now I look back on that time more fondly, because college is an extrovert's paradise-I will probably never have that much friend density again.

Even though I have always liked New York, it also usually takes a few days after a trip for me to readjust. For example, last week I was somewhere like this:

And now I am here:

A few memorable homecomings:

* I flew into Newark from Chicago in January on a very overcast day. As I waited for the train to come, I melodramatically looked out onto the barren wastelands of New Jersey, pondering the futility of my life. Some of you probably remember that my apartment in Washington Heights never had heat/hot water, a resident was stabbed to death outside and I was prematurely the mother of a teen model. Things looked grim. When I entered my apartment, I was semi-surprised to see a raw chicken breast and iceberg lettuce on the kitchen floor. Someone on a low-carb diet had been there. I texted my roommate,"I am not excited to see raw meat on the kitchen floor. What is going on?" She replied, "Oh, sorry girl, going to Jamaica with Squeeze (40+ paramour and baby daddy of 4). Didn't have time to clean up. Luv ya."

* I flew into JFK after spring break this year and my usual ride was doing jello shots in Atlantic City, so I walked out to the airport train. I usually like to be 100 percent sure that I am on the right train, so I verified with an employee. Said employee replied, "Do you not expletive deleted know how to read?" Rude. The blow was softened, however, when some Euro girls walked by and gave me their unused Metrocards.

* A few days ago I came in from Idaho and I had used a Russian car service to get there at 5:00 before and it was good and I was really sick, so I called again. Bad move. It took forever and I won't explain the situation because it is boring, but they did all this annoying stuff and tried to cheat me out of money. The fanny-packed driver insisted that I call dispatch to complain. Don't judge me for this, because I had a migraine, had been sitting on the runway for more than an hour and hadn't slept a full night in three weeks (from a deadly combo of dogs, babies and weird life events). I started heatedly arguing with the dispatch guy and it escalated to the point that I said I was going to file a Better Business Bureau complaint on him (although I am just as likely to go clubbing).
I asked, "What is your name?"
He replied in a very heavy Russian accent, "George."
"What is your last name?"
"George?"
"What is your LAST name?"
"George."
"Your last name is not George."
"It is Smith."
Then I started laughing and hung up. His last name was as likely to be Smith as my first name is likely to be "Jong-il."

Kanine* Karma

2011-07-10T20:23:00.000-07:00

I am probably not the first person that you will see at a dog show, but I would probably never cause harm to someone's pet. That is the best way to describe my feelings concerning animals. A few years ago, I received a friend request from my cousin's dog, Erpan. If I know who the person is, I generally accept (sorry, shirtless Honduran men of dubious origin). I had met Erpan, so it seemed innocuous enough.

I wrote a few friendly comments on the wall and forgot all about it-until Erpan mysteriously appeared in my "People You Might Know" bar. I clicked and was shocked to discover that I had been defriended. I thought that some terrible mistake had occurred, but let it slide for several years, until I was in Idaho this week. Sometimes it is kind of awkward to bring up a defriending, but it had been weighing on my mind for years, so I decided to confront my cousin. He told me, "You were making fun of him too much. He had to." Then he backpedaled and said, "Uhh... lots of people have that password. I don't know."

I was a little bitter about the incident until I was chatting with my mother on Facebook today and she randomly said, "I am defriending Erpan. He kept stealing my food and gave me a scratch on my arm." Doesn't feel so good, does it, Erpan?

* This spelling is intended to annoy someone. You know who you are.

In Which the Friend* Must Be Celebrating April Fool's Day

2011-07-10T13:20:00.000-07:00

All I will say is please note that the protagonist of this story is FOUR YEARS OLD.

Hannah’s New Dress

By: I don't want to say because she is probably a nice, well-meaning grandma or something.

Four-year-old Hannah’s eyes popped open. Today was zoo day! She jumped out of bed.

“I’m ready,” she called.

“Ready for what?” Mom asked.

“Ready for the zoo!”

“Go look in the kitchen first,” Mom said.

Hannah hurried to the kitchen. There was an empty bowl on the table. Then Hannah remembered. Breakfast came before the zoo.

After Hannah ate, she handed Mom her bowl. “I’m ready now.”

“I don’t think so,” Mom said. “Go look in the mirror.”

Hannah ran to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Her hair was tangled, and she had a big white milk mustache. Hannah grabbed a cloth and washed her face. Then she brushed her teeth and combed her hair.

“Now I’m ready,” she called.

“Not yet,” Mom said. “Look in your bedroom for something Grandma sent you!”

Hannah ran to her room. A new dress was on her bed. It was white with red cherries on it. Red was her favorite color. But Hannah frowned.

“It doesn’t have any sleeves,” she said.

Mom went to Hannah’s closet. She pulled out a bright red T-shirt that matched the bright red cherries.

“You can wear this under the dress,” Mom said. “Then it will be modest.”

Hannah quickly put the T-shirt on and then the dress.

“Now I am ready to go to the zoo!”

“Yes,” Mom said and smiled. “Now you are ready.”

* Mormon children's magazine

I Never Thought That I Would Dedicate Two Blog Posts to "Mall Cop"

2011-07-07T16:07:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know all of you are on the edge of your seats wondering what transpired with the "Mall Cop" wager. After secretly watching it to train, I was pretty confident that I could get through it without laughing. And I could, but there was some controversy. My sister and I decided that we would use our winnings to get facials, so she joined in.

As background, my dad is a macho jock who nicknamed his biceps "Death" and "Destruction." As soon as "Mall Cop" began, he stood up and started prancing around like a ballerina. Then, every time something stupid happened (90 % of movie), he started laughing uncontrollably, while rolling on the floor and crying. Whenever Kevin James crashed into something, my 82-year-old grandpa (the one who has Facebook) erupted into the fakest laugh ever, mocking everyone involved. I lost in five minutes.

My sister was much more stoic. She successfully held this facial expression for almost two hours:

She attributed her success to alternating between the images of children dying and Kevin James without a shirt. She only broke when my dad got desperate and started doing a Leprechaun jig. Now we are trapped at an interminable impasse: we think we deserve the money because we never actually laughed AT the movie and he claims that the deal covered any laughing that occurred WHILE the movie was on. My sister just read this and argues, "The whole premise of the bet was that "Mall Cop" is the funniest movie ever, not that Dad has awkward dance moves. We won."

Tomorrow my dad is planning to take the entire family to "Zookeeper." I seem to be prematurely living in the level of Hell reserved for people with pretentious taste in movies.

In Which B Comedy Movies Drive My Mormon Family to Gambling

2011-07-02T20:21:00.000-07:00

My dad: I like a lot of great movies-The Count of Monte Cristo, The Sound of Music, Scaramouche, El Cid, Ben Hur, Mall Cop. So at some point my parents decided that Mall Cop was one of the best movies of all time. My mother even watched it twice in one day. Although I have not seen it, I remember seeing the preview and thinking, "NEVER!"

I don't know how anyone could resist making fun of their parents for being enamored of Mall Cop, so I did. But my father's ardor transcended any sense of shame. As I was ridiculing him, he looked at me defiantly and said, "I will give you $100.00 cash if you can watch Mall Cop without smiling or laughing." Then we shook on it. He conned my grandpa into buying a copy for $1.99. I am downloading it right now, to train myself secretly-I don't want anything to take me by surprise. We are going to be in a rural cabin all week, without internet, so I am pretty sure no one in my family will read about my evil plan until it is too late.

In Which the Delta Passengers Could Learn a Thing or Two From Sesame Street

2011-07-02T12:31:00.000-07:00

When I boarded the airplane this morning at JFK, I held a boarding pass that said "31A." For that reason, I confidently walked to 31A and expected to actually sit there. It was occupied by a Russian man in Harley Davidson getup.

Miss Jill: Excuse me, I think you are in my seat.
Russian Biker (looks confused): My son and I have two seats in this row.
Miss Jill: Which ones?
Russian Biker (looks at tickets): Ummm B & C.

There was an aging Long Islander in C, who had already crammed the seat pocket with at least twenty periodicals and set up a buffet of snacks on the tray. Everyone stared at her.

Aging Long Islander (looking guilty): Uhhh, maybe I'm in the wrong seat.
Miss Jill (no nonsense): Could you please check your ticket?
Aging Long Islander (does not look at ticket): Oh, uh, I guess I'm supposed to be in D.

A line was developing, so I looked at D to see if it were a viable option. As soon as I saw a morbidly obese couple with a crying baby in E & F, I realized why it was so difficult for the Aging Long Islander to read the seat number on her ticket.

Miss Jill: I'm sorry, but I am not sitting there.

Ed. Note: Ok, maybe I sound mean, but my seat was A and I was already making a concession by sitting in C. And I am about to spend several days with:

**

Aging Long Islander: Maybe some people do not like babies (glares at me), but I do!
Miss Jill: Great, then you can sit with one.
Aging Long Islander (hesitantly): Fine, let me move all of my stuff.
Miss Jill: Ok.
Flight Attendant: Is there a problem here? Are people in the wrong seat?
Aging Long Islander: No/Miss Jill: Yes

Aging Long Islander then very slowly packed up all of her loot and huffily moved to D. She said loudly to her new seat partners, "I really wish that you could have this seat empty next to you, but you know." Then she scowled at me again.

I could have been upset, but then the mom started changing a smelly diaper just inches from her arm.

** The fact that my sister could have three kids in three years keeps me from stressing about my waning childbearing years.

Locked In The Deadly Embrace of Cujo

2011-06-27T05:37:00.000-07:00

More than one of my friends have used house sitting jobs in the summer as a way to avoid paying rent. It is pretty genius, because they usually pay them while they live for free, go through all of their stuff and eat all of their food. I have a good friend who comes to visit from Honduras every summer and she wanted to see D.C., so we crashed my friend's house sitting gig last summer. The house was really nice and had lots of geography books, so it was pretty fun. Unfortunately, they also had two dogs, which my friend informs me were named Cara and Midnight. I can't believe that people voluntarily let their house smell heinous with dog hair covering all of their clothes. Like any good New Yorker, I wear too much black for that. And I am a little bit afraid of dogs. One night while I was sleeping, either Cara or Midnight snuck into my room and I woke up to a dog panting, just inches from my face. To be honest, I might have preferred to see pretty much anything there, even something heinous like Flava Flav.

Sidenote: While I was living in the Dominican Republic, some neighborhood street dogs took a liking to me (my good aura most likely, j.k.) and followed me to school in a line every single day. One of them had puppies, so it turned into quite a procession. The Dominicans pointed and laughed, as they sometimes accompanied me all the way to the classroom door.

School is over, so I am back on house sitting duty in Virginia with yet another dog. I was awoken from my peaceful slumber last night by the sound of labored breathing in the room. Concerned that it was my friend, I scanned the room with my powerful cell phone light. Somehow the dog was sleeping in the room with us. Ugh. This is where it gets weird. I went back to sleep and have a distinct memory of waking up again, finding myself wrapped in a loving embrace with the dog. The scary part is that I have no idea if I that was a dream or the comatose conquering of my most bloodcurdling fear. I don't have any dog hair on my clothes, so I hope that it was the former.

I thought of the cleverest title for this post, but it is kind of dirty, so I can't use it. You're welcome, Mom.

The Mission President's Wife's Secret Side Job

2011-06-24T04:14:00.000-07:00

Lady I met yesterday:

"When my kids were little, I always used to call the BEST babysitting service. Every time I called, the woman sent me the nicest, most reliable girls. I loved it. Later I found out that they were all Mormon girls sent from Utah on missions, trying to earn a little extra cash."

????????????????????

PS: Does anyone have any pretty photographs from Latin America or Spain?

The Secret Facebook Lives of Polygamists or Night of the Living Patriarchs

2011-06-20T04:23:00.000-07:00

From time to time, I gratefully remember that I am only a few historical twists away from being this:

If you are a current BYU student, you should check out the Apostolic United Brethren (polygamist LDS spinoff) stronghold in Rocky Ridge-it is pretty close to Provo. My lovely cousin and I went really late at night last summer and I was pretty remorseful that I hadn't found it while I was a student. It is the perfect activity for a Mormon coed-it feels risky enough to give you an adrenaline rush, but I'm pretty sure that if your car broke down, the polygamists wouldn't slap a homespun gingham dress on you and brainwash you into a wedding ceremony with your grandpa's high school classmate. I feel doubly safe, because in their community, my era of prime marriageability would have occurred between 1995 and 1997.

After reading Escape, my cousin is a polygamy expert of sorts and was lucky enough to discover an adherent among her co-workers. Everyone had their suspicions, but they weren't sure until they added her on Facebook and all of her friends had polygamist last names. I did a little bit of research (ok, Facebook stalking) and identified some trends in the polygamist community.

Polygamists are most likely to join the following groups:

FishVille
FarmVille
PetVille
Not Giving Welfare to Illegal Immigrants (Ed. note-I guess they aren't into competition)
1,000,000 Strong SUPPORTING Arizona Immigration Law
Stand With Arizona (and Against Illegal Immgration)
Taylor Swift
Mix 107.9
Walmart
Nail salon pages

The men tend to work in restaurant supply shops, mining and landscaping. Ok, gtg, I have to go water my corn crop.

Hi Moms

2011-06-19T13:00:00.000-07:00

Don't worry, I am super cognizant of the fact that I am a total hypocrite, so I apologize in advance if I have ever made fun of your theme party. On Friday I was talking to the other Americans at my work and we realized that we were on the precipice of thousands of hours of free time. I realize that that is about as annoying as blogging, "Little Jimmy has straight As again and is skipping five grades," but it is just the reality of the situation. We are having a Gone With the Wind party tomorrow and I was wondering if anyone had good recipes for sweet potatoes/yams. This isn't turning into that kind of blog- I just need to use the resources that are available to me. If you know me in real life, e-mail me.

Thanks

A Romantic Protagonist Even Worse Than Edward Cullen

2011-06-17T05:21:00.000-07:00

A few years ago a co-worker became very angry with me because I ruined the end of "The Other Boleyn Girl" by telling her about Anne's untimely demise. I felt like that girl when I saw Jane Eyre yesterday-somehow I never read it and was genuinely surprised by each and every plot twist.

Observations:

* Audience: A gay couple and three solo women. This could be because it was 3:30-people think it is weird that I go to movies alone sometimes, but I'm definitely not the only one who does it here. That way no one can be mad at me for what I chose.

* Rochester is the worst crush ever. He admits that he hates kids, is mean to everyone and spends time randomly shooting into the air. I liked this post (link is the word this-Nance, I tried to follow your link color advice, but there wasn't an advanced option) by Bridget of Arabia about literary heroines ending up with the wrong man. Although I have to disagree with her analysis of Little Women-I have always LOVED Professor Baer. Ask my sister.

* Jane needs to lighten up a little. If I were a character in a gothic romance, I would be the frivolous person laughing too much.

I still needed to escape from my psychotic life, so I met up with my friend to see Super 8 afterwards. I have no justification for seeing two movies in one day, except that it has been a kind of stressful month and I am a teetotaler.

Observations

* Audience: Frat boys and other people who I doubt live in Manhattan. It is like going out to eat in Provo-suddenly you are surrounded by people who would feel at home on Dog the Bounty Hunter , which is confusing, because you don't see that type of people otherwise. I knew that we were in trouble when Hugh Jackman was sparring with a robot on his front lawn in a preview and someone enthusiastically yelled, "AWESOME!" Something tells me that that proclamation was accompanied by a fist bump.

* Everyone was in stitches over a preview for some zookeeper comedy. It reminded me of a time when I went to a movie with my mother and she loudly exclaimed, "These people will laugh at anything!" Yes, you did that Mom.

I only have fifty minutes left of this school year, suckas.

The Parable of the Good Non-Aryan*

2011-06-15T05:23:00.000-07:00

My friend "Amy" had cancer several years ago and in the middle of her chemotherapy treatments, she got tickets to The Daily Show. In spite of the debilitating side effects of chemo, she was excited for the chance to do something fun. She was especially enthusiastic because the guest was Eric Idle, who I guess is on Monty Python.

Side note: As I was generally surrounding by nerdy A.P. kids in high school, I felt a lot of pressure to laugh at Monty Python movies, even though I didn't/don't think that they are funny. I finally admitted to myself and to the world in 1999 that I hate them.

In one of the skits, Jon Stewart started ravenously eating a gelatinous mold of a brain. Completely unrelated to Stewart's snack, Amy suddenly felt a wave of nausea and started to vomit. She and her sister caught it in their hands and looked around nervously; it was undoubtedly a difficult situation from an etiquette standpoint. Finally, some employees ushered them into Eric Idle's dressing room to rest. A few moments later, they returned and said that Jon Stewart wanted to meet her, because he was concerned that his brain stunt had been too revolting for her. He apologized profusely and she responded that she was actually a chemo patient and the timing was coincidental. She said that at that point, he looked genuinely concerned and expressed his sympathy. He then told her that the Daily Show wanted to send them home to Long Island in a town car.

While I am talking about this, I would also like to publicly thank Jon Stewart for giving me something to watch on Hulu in the morning while I get ready for work everyday. You are the best!

* This in no way signifies that I think a good non-Aryan is an anomaly.

Turkmenistan Tuesday

2011-06-14T07:07:00.000-07:00

One of my theories is that in social situations, the person with the least interesting life/conversation topics dominates the conversation. Case in point-I was once at a breakfast and discovered that one of the women had lived in Turkmenistan for several years. It is hard for me to imagine someone not being curious about that, but every time I asked a question, another woman interrupted to talk about her child rearing philosophy. It made me so annoyed that I pretended to fall asleep every time she did it, but to no avail. I still don't know the whole Turkmenistan story and I deeply regret it. I do know, however, that this other woman likes to take her children to museums.

My thirst for information about Turkmenistan was partially quenched, because last night I went to see a Finnish film called The Shadow of the Holy Book. It started at 7:00 and we got there at 7:02 and the cashier was gone already, so we didn't have to pay. The former dictator for life, Saparmurat Niyazov, allegedly wrote an autobiography with a creative spin on history called the Ruhnama. I say allegedly, because he was rumored to be semi-literate. Its study has slowly supplanted traditional education and Turkmens are required to recall large portions of its wisdom in job interviews and to get drivers licenses. Per Wikipedia, "In March 2006, Niyazov was recorded as saying that he had interceded with God to ensure that any student who read the book three times would automatically get into heaven."

There is a statue in Ashgabat, the capital, that lights up at 8:00 p.m. every night and plays a recording.

The movie shows how multinational corporations get contracts in Turkmenistan by funding translations of the Ruhnama. I believe that John Deere funded the English one. I would read it, if I could get my hands on it, but unfortunately have only found a copy in Armenian on Ebay and an exorbitantly priced copy on a Turkmen website. I am pretty sure that I don't want them to have my credit card information.

It was actually really interesting, but in spite of the fact that the filmmaker was there, there were only 6-8 people in attendance (a couple left early). I was in the bathroom before it started, but my friend told me that the director unenthusiastically said, "I might not be here after the movie, so ask me your questions now." I think that he was underwhelmed by the turnout. He did return, however, and his diligence seemed to be rewarded with a blonde groupie.

In Which The Employees of Sesame Street Despise Children

2011-06-13T06:21:00.000-07:00

Preschool teacher, nanny, child psychologist: there are certain professions in which one would expect to find individuals with at least slightly warm feelings towards kids. I would have included Sesame Street employees in that category until Friday.

Somehow the first and second graders of Turkish school got invited to appear in Sesame Street, because they were filming on the Coney Island boardwalk. I was curious, so I volunteered to take a group at 10 a.m. with my beloved co-worker, Olivia. The kids were excited to be on t.v. and practiced their signature poses (their phrase, not mine) in the van. When they screamed that they hated Elmo, I mentally agreed, but told them not to tell the Sesame Street people that, because it might hurt their feelings. To my discredit, I told them to say that they liked Elmo, but cross their fingers. After we arrived, we had to wait for more than two hours and it was HOT. After about an hour of freeze dance and charades, I pretended to be a television reporter interviewing them about their fame. One of the girls saw it as an opportunity to slowly sway while singing a Miley Cyrus song. After her performance, a first grader exclaimed, "That was a beautiful song. I loved it!" As the words, "What a nice thing to say..." were coming out of my mouth, I looked down and saw that his little fingers were crossed.

The Production Assistants were actually really nice and kid friendly guys in their early twenties. They started by taking photographs of each kid behind a placard with the the production information (I don't know what to call that) and for some reason the kids thought that they had to do a signature pose or peace sign in the picture. They asked Olivia and me if one of us wanted to be in the show. I didn't want my television debut (besides the Bozo show in the late 80s) to take place when I was sweaty and sunburned with humidity hair, so I responded with a contorted face of horror. Olivia obviously did not feel the same way, called her husband to tell him the news and immediately started giving herself a makeover. She eventually was filmed pretending to be the Turkish kids' mother, so it was probably good that I did not volunteer. There are very few children in South Brooklyn who could be mistaken for my offspring.

After putting microphones on a few kids, the P.A. said that they could have some food from the refreshment table. So maybe they ate the entire plate of fruit skewers, but maybe they had been waiting there for 2 hours already and it was lunch time. Moms, back me up on this one. Behind the scenes, a frumpy looking senior citizen witheringly glared at the children with unmitigated loathing. Her baggy pants, frizzy hair and sweatshirt tied around her waist like a weight lifting belt led me to believe that she had recently disembarked from a Carnival Cruise. Imagine my surprise when Dotty from Wisconsin began to upbraid the P.A. for letting the children near the food cart. Then, with hostility burning in her eyes, she turned on the kids and told them to immediately take off their Sesame Street issue mono colored t-shirts, as if we were going to abscond with them. Breathing laboriously from rage and obesity, she pointedly clarified to the P.A., "I am not angry with you. I am not angry with the children." Hmmm... who does that leave? I had no choice but to start laughing at her. And to sneak the kids lots of drinks from the cooler when her back was turned. Something tells me that Jim Henson was rolling over in his grave.

I would tell you our air date, but they evasively said that it would be "in the fall or next year." Olivia decided that it was a Sesame Street scheme to make people watch every morning, hoping to see their child.

Just Another Celebrity Studded Weekend

2011-06-12T14:53:00.000-07:00

I am convinced that I regularly walk past celebrities without noticing them; I generally travel through this world in a state of oblivion, constantly distracted by weird thoughts. My prior list of celebrity encounters includes a Turkish arm wrestling champion, a Eurovision star, Glen Beck, Mormons who were famous in the seventies, Honduran politicians at parent/teacher conferences, Bill Cosby through glass and many other less than impressive encounters.

Celebrity Sighting #1

Yesterday in Brooklyn Heights, we crossed paths with a group of adults and children. It was raining, so in homage to Oklahoma!, the kids started singing, "Oh what a horrible morning, oh what a horrible day!" I was glad that someone else was being brought up under the gentle glow of technicolor and I appreciated their adaptability. After we passed, my cousin-in-law, Marie, whispered, "That was Paul Giamatti!" I appreciated that, as soon as I figured out who it was:

Some of you may recall that when my former roommate asked me what I was watching and when I responded, John Adams, she asked, "Is that the giant who cuts down apple trees?"

Celebrity Sighting #2

We then went to an art gallery in the East Village and were disappointed to find out that it was closed for the private reception of a graffiti artist, L.A. II (Little Angel). My cousin deftly name-dropped a friend of the owner and soon she was enthusiastically welcoming us in. Word to the wise, if you want someone to promote your artwork, even if it sucks, find this woman immediately. I have never seen such an ebullient proponent of tagging with a spray paint can behind such a well-heeled facade.

First, she implored my cousin to have his shoes decorated, but he declined, which time may prove to have been a mistake. In the meantime, an affluent couple had a t-shirt adorned with a spray painted smiley face and then had a photograph taken with the artist, as our host gushed, "You will want to put that one behind plexiglass." She turned back to my cousin and asked, "Do you have a white t-shirt on underneath that? Yeah, I see one, let him do it for you." Ok, Mormons, think about that one for a second, because I don't want to spell it out.

As much as an original L.A. II would have increased his yuppie social status, my cousin CTRed and stammered, "Uh, no... this shirt is too grimy." Luckily I made off with this sweet autographed postcard:

I hope that having it on my person does not get me jumped in the wrong neighborhood.

Celebrity Sighting #3

Harry Reid was at church today. I never really thought about him, but now I have a really good impression. He seemed really nice.

Postscript: I generally think asking people for their autograph or to take a picture with them is debasing. They are just people. I don't approve of it and am only willing to do it as a joke (see above), for blog purposes or for a friend/student who cares.

Honduras: Redux

2011-06-09T06:02:00.000-07:00

My worst memories of Honduras are at church. They involve sitting at the piano for hours on end in a corner that was untouched by the ceiling fans. I credit Gatorade for the fact that I never ended up in a hospital with an I.V. restoring my fluids.

New York isn't the hottest place on Earth, but reliance on public transportation is electrolyte kiss of death. It seems like subterranean stations would be cold, but somehow they end up being a preview to Hell, with whoever makes indiscernible announcements about station changes playing the role of Satan. A while ago I had a conversation with a girl who is a doctor at the CDC. She told me about work she did in Haiti last summer and said that it was so gross in New York that working in Haiti was a welcome relief.

PS: Honduras is so hot and humid that goo starts coming out of the pores in your nose. Better than the steam they use in facials.

Nobel Laureates Who Belong on Daytime Television and Other Miscellaneous Comments About LIfe

2011-06-08T04:34:00.000-07:00

* A few months ago, I was quietly sleeping on the N train. My close friends and family can attest that I am not much of a sleeper ("Shut up, we will all still be here in the morning" comes to mind-you know who you are), so this was a miracle in itself. Unfortunately, the passenger next to me did not respect my peaceful slumber and grabbed my arm, shaking it vigorously. I drowsily opened my eyes and looked at him, confused. He squinted and asked, "That be your real hair color?" I glared and asked, "You woke me up for that?" But then pride interceded and I affirmed.

* My friend's cute four-year-old son is so obsessed with trains that he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the schedules and transfers. For example, if you say "Atlantic Avenue," he says "2345BDNQR and Long Island Railroad." Or if you say "N Line from 18th Avenue to Avenue U," he can recite every stop in between. It reminds me of when my sister memorized Harry Potter 1, but we aren't supposed to talk about that. When I was at BYU, some professor brought his grandson into class to show off some parlor tricks-the kid had memorized chapters of scripture and recited them in a monotone. I guess this talent could be useful if you were a prisoner of war in need of spiritual nourishment.

* Audience review of "The Tree of Life:" Nothing to say, because there was complete silence-maybe they were asleep. Reviews were mixed, but I enjoyed it because I like classical music and movies where not much happens.

* If you have an elementary school student sized bladder and you find yourself in a massive city without many public bathrooms, never fear. My pregnant cousin taught me a little trick. You put your name into a crowded restaurant, use their bathroom and then flee. I am a pretty strict rule follower, so it gives me a little thrill.

* I read this (link is on the word this, I don't know how to make the links show up better) article the other day on The Guardian. The title of the article is "VS Naipaul finds no woman writer his literary match – not even Jane Austen."

Excerpt: He felt that women writers were "quite different". He said: "I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me."

I don't feel that strongly about this issue, but a few things stood out to me.
1. Is Jane Austen really womanhood's best contribution to this Literary Celebrity Death Match?
2. V.S. Naipaul won a Nobel Prize, but so did Obama. No disrespect to Obama, but 2009 may have been a little premature.
3. I read "Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey" last summer and in layman's terms-it wasn't all that.
4. There is also an article about him in The Telegraph with the headline: "Sir Vidia Naipaul admits his cruelty may have killed wife." Apparently he pulled a John Edwards on her.

* Speaking of Nobel Prize Laureates, has anyone else read about when Mario Vargas Llosa gave Gabriel Garcia Marquez a shiner in the seventies? I think that it is funnier than it is-I guess I just like fights.

Exploring the Vast Inexperience of Miss Jill

2011-06-07T06:02:00.000-07:00

I have a feeling this was originally some kind of drinking game, but whenever we study present perfect tense, we play “I have never.” This is played by putting up ten fingers and one by one, the students say things that they have never done. If you have done whatever they haven’t, you put a finger down. In a group that knows each other so well, it is easy to know Achilles’ heels. For example, “I have never eaten pork” to get me out. Or I can say, “I have never drunk Turkish coffee or tea” to get everyone in the room or “I have never spoken Turkish while my teacher was talking.” Here are some of mine…

I have never…
Tried beef jerky
Watched a full episode of SNL. I don’t have a problem with it-I just go to bed too early.
Added extra salt to something. If you are sharing popcorn with me and take the liberty of liberally salting it, you can rest assured that I am silently plotting your untimely demise. I seriously hate extra salt.
Said the s word
Mowed the lawn
Bought an NKOTB tape
Gone to work without makeup on
I have only gone 2 days without showering that I can remember. Once I was in the Dominican Republic and we were camping on the beach and it just wasn’t an option. We tried to wash our hair in the ocean, but not so effective.
Ordered a cheeseburger.
Seen the Breakfast Club or Pretty in Pink
Read a complete Hemmingway. I read half of Farewell to Arms and I hated his writing style and quit. Somehow I was never in a class that read “The Old Man and the Sea.” Maybe I should try again as an adult.
Been to Canada
Tried Mountain Dew or Dr. Pepper (not a Mormonism thing, I just don't like soda that much)

Does anyone else have any weird ones?

And I would like to warn you about the nastiest drink of all time: Malta. I tried it on Friday night and It tastes like putrid Whoppers.

From Moscow With Love

2011-06-07T05:20:00.000-07:00

Dirty Dancing: Anatolian Nights

2011-06-05T05:53:00.000-07:00

Besides Donald Trump on "The Apprentice," has anyone ever heard of a truly rich person who drives around in a limo? It seems like 90%* of limo passengers are of low socioeconomic status and inebriated, in spite of being under the age of twenty-one. Somewhere I got the idea that limos were vulgar, like having a bejeweled expensive brand name on your hindquarters. Or spending $1,000 on sunglasses for your chihuahua. Or paying someone to follow you around with a parasol. Or the mansion of any rapper on "Cribs." Before this post unravels into a Bolshevik treatise, what I am trying to say is that if you think that exorbitant spending will make you classy, it is probably a lost cause.

Even though I fit the economic part of my characterization of limo denizens, I never imagined a situation in which I would actually be cruising in one. Yesterday was graduation and I woke up with a deadly synthesis of excruciating sinus pain and the travails of womanhood. I almost started crying when I thought about going to graduation like that, but there was no way out. When I arrived, the man in charge of graduation approached me and said, "You will go on the limo tonight (the school rents limos for the graduates to go on a late night joyride through Manhattan) with the twelfth grade girls." I nodded assent, but I was thinking "!@#$#@%#^!#$@#$!#@%#!^#$#@!^^$#!@." But there are certain crazy things that you agree to do when kids are leaving for Turkey the next morning.

I am going to skip graduation for now, although there were some highlights. When a girl told the English teacher and me, "We requested that you two come with us in the limo," my co-worker turned to me and said, "Only at this school would you be considered the party teacher." I had no rebuttal, because I am guessing that my dancing style is similar to that of cousin Mitt. I'm too uptight and unskilled to enjoy it, but it is hard to convince people that I don't want to. They always insist that I will fall in love with it once I try, but I must point out that I am 30 years old. I have tried.

The limo looked more or less like this:

Luckily I was the only one who knew the purpose of the pole. The driver was an hour late and became enraged when the girls asked him how to use the sound system. Most of the girls, especially the ones who wear scarves (they call them "covered"), can't dance in front of men, but there are not any rules if there are just women present. And Turkish girls can rival Latinas in the hip department-they went crazy in there. They tirelessly danced to a mix of top 40, Enrique and Turkish songs while I laughed and the other teacher nauseously covered her ears.

For a brief moment, imagine that you are a mild mannered tourist from Iowa in Times Square and a limo pulls up to you. Turkish music is pumping and girls are hanging out the sides and top while singing and intermittently ululating (if you don't know that word, look it up-it is funny).

As we drove back to Brooklyn, I was so grateful to be experiencing that moment with them before they left. I thought about how hard it must have been for them to leave home in ninth grade, without knowing English. And how many challenges they faced living in a dorm with dozens of hormonal, homesick teenage girls. I remembered all the long conversations that we had about religion and the way their vivid descriptions created vibrant images of Turkey in my mind. They taught me the proper way to eat sunflower seeds, the ins and outs of Eurovision and introduced me to emo Turkish singers who inspired people to sneak razorblades into their concerts. They gave me generous gifts of evil eye jewelry, expatriate candy and meals at Turkish cafes (this does not effect their final grade, don't worry).

The previous months of Senioritis had expunged all of those good memories of them, so that evening was the perfect ending to our time together. I was anticipating a long, drawn out farewell, but as soon as the limo stopped, they bolted. Confused, because the conversation had taken place in Turkish, I looked at the other teacher and she said, "Hurry, let's go. They ran away because he was mean and they did not want to leave a tip."

* The other 10% consists of wedding parties and airport service.

Mr. Junkie's Neighborhood

2011-06-02T08:14:00.000-07:00

Most of the younger students at my school are U.S. born Turks, Bosnians or Stanites (my word, not sure what the correct term is) or a mix thereof. They are pretty Americanized. For that reason, their ideas about Mormonism are rather South Parkian. The older dorm kids hardly even know any Christians, so I wield more influence. For better or for worse, they probably think that Mormons are eccentric blonde, half Mexican midgets who frequently get derailed telling weird stories about Castro and Che.

A Turkish teacher and I took some younger students to a local park last week at the end of the day (substituting). I like the park now that I discovered I can get better wireless there than at the school. We split up to watch different groups of students. After about fifteen minutes, she frantically ran over to me and said, "There is a strange guy bothering the kids. I believe he is high. He asked if I were a teacher and when I said yes, he told me to get another job. I think the kids are in danger." I was impressed that she could identify someone as "high," because her community is even more conservative than mine and I have trouble with that.

I walked over there and saw a mid-twenties, probable projects dweller with a glassy expression. He was getting up in kid's grills and asking if he could use their cell phones. To their credit, they denied him. I asked politely, "Is there something I can help you with?" He replied, "I lost my phone and I need to call it."

Miss Jill: Ok, I will give you some quarters for the payphone.
Glassy Eyes: No, I need to use a cell phone so they can call me back.
Miss Jill: Sorry, these are school kids. Stop bothering them.
Glassy Eyes: You think I old, but I ain't.
Miss Jill: Ok, but stop bothering my students.

Glassy Eyes flashed me a look of disdain and started bothering the kids again.

Miss Jill: Sir, I think you don't understand. You need to stop harassing my students or I am going to call the police.
Glassy Eyes (to students): Your teacher be mad scary. What's her problem?
Students: Hahaha
Miss Jill: Thanks. Please go away. Kids-let's go back to school!

The kids promptly turned on Glassy Eyes and started yelling, "You ruined our day!"

He retorted: Blame your teacher. She's the crazy one.
They were unmoved by his solid logic and continued yelling.

As we started walking back to school he started following us and yelled, "Do you expletive deleted know who I am? Do you expletive deleted know who I am? I expletive deleted run dis neighbahood."

Physically precocious teen: Don't you curse at her. She is Mormon! She doesn't curse! (Per South Park. I actually don't curse because it is low class, not because of religion)

He did not appear to be an ex-Soviet mafia strongman, so I was skeptical of his lofty claims and said, "That's great, but I'm still going to have to call the police."

Glassy Eyes: Where you be from? Expletive deleted Staten Island or something?
Miss Jill: That's racial profiling. This is your last chance.
Glassy Eyes (pointing to an Escalade): I have a car like that.
Miss Jill: Then you can probably afford a phone.

I started dialing 911 in his face and he ran into the distance, leaving his indelible mark on us. At random intervals during the school day, kids yell, "Got a phone?"