Changing to learn, learning from change

I’m in the middle of a career change. I graduated with a BA in Political Science with a minor in Journalism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1998, and since then my primary occupation has been as a journalist. In 2001, the event that changed the world changed my world as well. I had been freelancing in the New York area, mostly covering international trade economics and politics. In May of that year I began teaching a couple of classes at a local language institute in the Ironbound, a predominantly Portuguese-speaking neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey, where I lived at the time.

I had planned a field trip with my level II students to visit the World Trade Center and the United Nations on September 11. I thought it would be a good idea to elevate the class discussions we were having on immigration and working in the U.S. by doing a lesson on international integration and cooperation. This soon turned out to be an ironic subject as the PATH train we were on stopped just before reaching the WTC (just as the first plane hit). We were re-routed through a maze of tunnels to Sixth Avenue, a.k.a. Avenue of the Americas, and the lesson plan was changed as we unfortunately experienced the failure of world cooperation up close instead.

For the next few months I began to analyze my chosen career path. I was no longer satisfied in my journalistic writing and began to write journals reflecting on the role I was playing in the world. I began to feel the need to make a greater impact on my community at the local level, so I took a job as managing editor of three local weeklies in Newark’s urban rim. This meant a huge pay cut, but it gave me the perspective I needed to digest all my experiences up to that point and make a decision about my future. I became keenly aware of the growing division between immigrant and native-born populations, which I envisioned as a crack on the wall of American solidarity that could surely split our nation if nothing significant is done to begin repairing it.

I began to reflect on my experience years before when I had lived in Miami. In order to become fully involved in that community I taught myself Spanish while volunteering as a language tutor and while living with a group of Cuban political refugees and a variety of other recently arrived economic immigrants from Venezuela, Colombia, Chile, Brazil and Argentina. At that time, I saw that access to education was the only thing that could help immigrants (or intra-national migrants, as I viewed myself) successfully cast off disenfranchisement and become fully involved in a “foreign” society. It was then I realized I needed to be a part of the process of building stronger local communities through education. Children of immigrants were suffering in the wake of increasingly weighted outcome based education standards and education for their parents is the only way to fill the gap for these kids.

I have since returned to South Florida, where I began working at Miami Dade College earlier this year as a lab instructor in the EAP department (English for Academic Purposes). Many of these adult learners cite the need to cooperate more fully in the education of their children as a reason for studying English, especially since work in many areas of the United States frequently does not require this skill. This fall I will also teach a vocational English conversation course in the community education department for those seeking work in English-speaking environments. I may also become more involved in academic advisement, helping immigrant students decide on career paths that require an associate’s or bachelor’s degree. MDC was recently designated a four-year college after adding four bachelor’s degree programs in teacher education. It remains, however, a traditional community college in many respects. The multicultural dimension is especially significant here, as MDC serves the largest population of Latino students and the second largest population of African American students of any college in the United States. It is also well-known for its adult education programs for refugees, serving large populations of Cuban, Haitian and other Caribbean students.

My principle goal in studying in the MAED/AEDL program at University of Phoenix is to gain the knowledge and experience necessary to assist in the development of online classes for students of English as a Second Language. While MDC already utilizes online instruction for many of its classes, there are no such options for students in MDC’s language programs. Online options would especially aid student retention rates, since a majority of second language learners in the United States are working adults, many of whose frequent schedule or lifestyle changes during a semester may force them to withdraw or fail due to difficulties with attendance.

For me, changing careers doesn’t mean I won’t continue to work as a writer and a journalist. In fact, I know from experience that working with adult learners inspires me by giving me a clear glimpse into the true heart of humanity.

Silence softens the dictator's heart

I look around me now, at more than 100 empty computer stations in a lab that has for the past three months been filled at every moment with what seemed to be twice that many people. It's quiet, and strangely so. By this time every Tuesday I'd normally be hours deep into 20 one-on-one conversations, or perhaps a one-on-20 or five one-on-fours. Mine and three open classrooms around me all competing for the airspace of a 40 x 70 foot room makes for an interesting scene. Tonight, though, there's an odd silence of just 15 or so adjuncts and other part time staff clicking away on their keyboards; conversations are hushed.
 
At times throughout the semester I felt like a fascist dictator, raising my voice to be heard saying "English only!" It was for their own good, I'd convince myself, remembering how when I visited Mexico to study Spanish I'd laugh at the monitors who'd move through the crowds, even at recess, to remind us it was a Spanish-only campus. But now as a teacher I feel responsible for their learning. As a student I only felt I was responsible for what I learned. I never stopped to think how my teachers might have felt in some misguided way responsible for me. I'm the misguided one now, I suppose. Enforcing an English-only policy in a lab might be a good thing, especially since this is the ONLY place many of our students get a chance to practice, but beyond a gentle reminder it's really a futile effort. Those who want to learn will, because they will practice at every opportunity. Those who laugh, like I did, may learn too, but only if they have inner will to do it on their own terms.
 
I see now, as I occupy the other side of the desk, how the bold ones, those who scoff educational authority knowing they'll get things by themselves, really do a disservice to the community nature of classroom learning. It hurts those not outgoing enough to get the education they need on their own. Sure, it's not their fault since it's not their responsibility, but they could, by sharing their superior skills and confidence, be a great benefit to others in the class who are timid or even fearful of speaking this foreign tongue. And a teacher could really benefit by their greater participation, for sure. But when it comes down to it, this kind of enlightenment is often missed in the selfish stages of youth.
 
These desks will fill again in a month or so, at the end of August, when vacations are through. I'm looking forward to the new term, and have learned enough over this summer mini session to do an even better job with my new students. But with the new semester come new challenges, too. I think I'll benefit from bidding farewell to the fascist dictator, and instead having a more subtle approach. To start, I'll have one-on-one chats with those who obviously excel in order to engage them more in the guidance of their peers. I know this would have helped me stay on task when I was an undergrad, having an underling to encourage. And as for timidity versus boldness, I'll try to find a way to manage to teach to both, while particularly encouraging the latter in all my students.

All are welcome here

By Brian Schwarz

The ones who come from far away

And them, who cross the water near

All are welcome here

Those whose families plucked them to

And them, crossing the river in fear

All are welcome here

On flights of freedom or walks through hell

Or in the beds of trucks, shedding tears

All are welcome here

Though their equality’s feigned or just

Whether the law chides them or cheers

All are welcome here

Memory of a past life

I was born at the southern extreme of Megalopolis. Neither of my parents are from the city or the state where I was born. In fact, my birthplace was just a brief stop on my father’s rising career path with a major oil company. He's from metro New Jersey and my mother's from a small farming community in Iowa. They had met in Washington, D.C., at a party for the alumni of a now-defunct liberal arts college in the Midwest called Parson's and were married in a lovely white wedding in small church resting on the southeastern slope of Watchung Mountain in suburban Newark. They seemed to be constantly on the move during their short marriage; my dad had been transferred from York, Pennsylvania, where my sister was born in 1969, to Baltimore shortly before I was to arrive. Then, ten days after I was born, in 1971, it was on to the next stop. We moved on August 19, while I was still on a diet of mother’s milk, to Orange, a historic, rural community nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia’s piedmont. I can just imagine the hustle and bustle of this major move taking place in the short days following the release of my mother and I from Greater Baltimore Medical Center, which is actually in suburban Towson, not Baltimore city. As the story has been told to me, my mother and sister had been staying with friends while my father was in Virginia paving the way for the move even as my mother’s labor was induced. He apparently made it for the delivery. The next ten years in Orange proved to be relatively calmer than the first ten days of my life. We lived for three years in near perfect domestic tranquility in a ranch-style house situated on a five-acre lot on what had been in the last century a plantation before my parents separated in 1974. It was then that my sister, mother and I moved into a small apartment on the steep incline of Hickenbottom Hill, near downtown. Meanwhile, my father stayed in the sophisticated modern neighborhood out in the hills near the Rapidan River where my sister and I would visit him Sunday afternoons. During the week, I would anticipate the ride along the pebble-paved country road that stretched out through hilly and lush farmland, crossing fresh babbling brooks and passing by the banks of muddy rivers. I fondly recall being picked up every Sunday morning and attending Orange Presbyterian Church on Main Street before being whisked away for an afternoon in the country with Dad. My father would always slow as we passed a local swine farm along the way, yelling out “sooooooey!” to the pigs in the field. The street where I lived in town couldn’t have been more different than Spicer's Mill. Rather than being lined with patches of forest and homes on five- to 10-acre lots, it was lined with unremarkable apartment blocks and run-down town homes. Still, I preferred life in town and quickly took to the independence of town life. My favorite pastime was riding my bike down to the local market to buy Hubba Bubba, Big League Chew and Bazooka chewing bum. I would meet up with friends and ride until twilight, popping my gum and popping wheelies, trying to outdo the other roughneck neighborhood boys. Then I’d return home to my mother’s call, that went out to my sister and I but could be heard by all. “Aaaaaa-lli-suuuuun, Briiiiiii-uuuuun”. It was loud as the siren at the rescue squad. Yes, Orange is my true hometown, even if I only lived there for 10 years to the day. But my memory of this place is a romantic one to be sure. At the center of Orange I remember the historic town hall, and that Main Street still had an old-fashioned soda fountain and wasn't overrun with national chain stores. Sure, there was a 7-Eleven, a McDonald's and a Hardee's, and of course a Safeway grocery store and a Leggett's department store, but mostly the streets were lined with mom-and-pop shops where my mother would take my sister and I to "run errands". One of my favorite spots to go with my mom was a fabric store where she would buy patterns to make our clothes. See, my mom divorced my dad when I was three, and while we weren't poor, we had to be frugal. Money didn't grow on trees, or so I was told. Still, wherever we went mom would get us some kind of treat. At the fabric store once she bought me some yarn and a pattern to do a needlepoint project. The design was a cute little dog with a blue bird on his nose. Later, when I'd finished the project, she bought me some brown crushed velvet fabric and some stuffing to make it into a pillow. I slept with that pillow for years. Sometimes we would go to a store called Mack's, somewhere on the edge of town, along a stretch of road that for a few miles was a four-lane divided highway. There wasn't much traffic at the time, and I think it headed toward the smaller town of Gordonsville, but the Mack's shopping center was usually as far as we'd go. Inside, mom would buy us a kind of homemade dried fruit roll, a full decade before the commercial Fruit Roll-Ups would hit the market. This always made me feel special. Mom had a way of doing that, making you feel special. She made it a point to treat everyone equally, whether they were rich or poor, white or black, fat or thin. It didn't matter who you were or where you came from, she would always make a person feel they mattered to her, that they were important. One afternoon when I was shopping with her in Leggett's, looking for a pair of jeans, I got the typical "mom" treatment. I was always bigger than the other boys in my class. Not fat, I was just taller and thicker than the rest. This meant I had to wear "husky" jeans. This made me feel terrible. I was embarrassed because none of the other boys in the store were shopping for these husky jeans--they were just getting the regular old Wrangler and Lee jeans like everyone else. My mom turned this around and pointed out that the husky jeans made me special. I was growing up big and strong and had nothing to be ashamed about, she said. I could be proud of who I was. We only lived for a year in that a small apartment on Hickenbottom Hill. For $200 a month my mom got us a house on Peliso Avenue that might as well have been a mansion. We lived here for much of the time we spent in Orange. It was a huge four-bedroom house with a nice front porch, complete with a wooden swing, and a big grassy yard lined with a fence and big oak trees. On days that I was sick, or pretending to be sick, mom would take the day off of work and lay out in the back yard. She usually bought me some little toy to play with so I wouldn't be bored, and tried to keep me away from the television. But at 12:30, I would sit with her and watch The Young and the Restless, which had been a tradition of ours since before I started school. One of my first memories is from before my parents' divorce, watching The Young and the Restless with my mom in the downstairs den at the house on Spicer’s Mill. I remember seeing President Richard Nixon come on the TV, and mom was less than pleased. The year was 1974, and I guess now it had something to do with Watergate. Mom hated politics and couldn't stand having her favorite show being preempted by a special report. I think we left and went shopping, but I can't exactly remember. Most of my best memories of Orange involve my parents, and I guess my sister, although she was a bit more independent and usually did her own thing when she wasn't fighting with me. While visiting my father we would either go fishing at a neighbor's pond or just lie around on the hammock in Dad's huge screened-in porch while he tended to the barbecue or did yard work. During the week, Allison and I would be back with Mom, where the three of us lived together in that rented house across on Peliso, across the street from an old abandoned school. My mom worked for a time for an employment agency, oddly based in a Winnebago that sat parked in the school's parking lot. Orange Elementary School was just around the corner a block away, and I would spend every afternoon there on the playground with friends, spinning on the merry-go-round, running around in the woods or kissing my girlfriend Kelly Apperson, whose mom was my fourth grade teacher, beneath the pines. In 1980, when mom got remarried, we all moved to a house in the country. There, my sister and I got closer, mostly because we didn't like our new step-father and were no longer close enough to town to play with our old friends. We would usually rollerskate together on a thin stretch of sidewalk just outside the front door, or go down to the creek to play with our new neighbors. There were several kids in the neighborhood, if you could call it a neighborhood. It was really just countryside interspersed with houses every five acres or so, and there were often fields of tall grass, high fences with rusty nails, railroad tracks or swelled creeks to contend with if you wanted to make a visit. More often then not we would just congregate at the creek that formed a border between our properties and practice building damns, bridges or other engineering projects, led by the Harvey boys, Michael and Chris. Mike came to be my best friend, but unfortunately we moved away from Orange after just one year at our step-father's home. My father got remarried, too, around that same time. Soon after, my dad, his wife, Vicki, and my two stepsisters, Emmy and Jenny, moved to Olney, Maryland, located in suburban Washington, D.C. We would visit them on weekends and went to school back in the Shenandoah Valley during the week. In 1982, I finally got the brother I'd always wanted when Zac, who is 11 years younger than me, was born. He never got to know life in Orange, and probably barely remembers Winchester since after just five years there we moved a few more hours north to Pennsylvania. Now, Orange remains even a hazy distant memory for me, but one that is as rich and whole in some back part of my mind. My father keeps me up to date on what’s happening there; he still owns a commercial property near the McDonald’s and an apartment building across the street from the elementary school. Still, despite the distance and the lapse in years, memories of Orange provide the basis to my sanity even today. While I love cities, and the thought of living in such rural confines as Orange all but freaks me out today, it is an important part of my roots that keeps me grounded, no matter how far I roam from those quiet streets and streams.

Passing through Conchali

It was the fall of 2000, but it was spring in Santiago where I was visiting the Chilean capital to do a piece for a British magazine on the lasting effects of privatization at the country's ports a decade on. I was to visit Valparaiso and San Antonio, some 90 to 100 miles away along the Pacific coast, but first I was heading to the small municipality of Conchali, in the northern section of Santiago, to pick up a friend of mine named Humberto, whom I met while living in Miami Beach in 1996.

From El Centro I drove my match-box of a rental car across a low-lying bridge spanning the Rio Maphocho and north on Recoleta. The lower middle class neighborhood of Conchali is tucked humbly away and neatly hidden from the rich upper suburbs of Las Condes in the east, just across a small unpopulated ridge at the back entrance of the Parque Metropolitana. A small working class barrio, or comuna, that was spurred by a public housing initiative in the mid 1920s, there are small farms there, but most have been eaten up by a grimy industrial sector and development along the circular roadway Americo Vespucio, which forms Conchali's northern border. Mainly, though, it is a place for families.

I was going to pick up Humberto at his parents' home, where he lived when he wasn't visiting his sister in Maipu or or friends in Vina del Mar, and we were planning to leave that night for the coast. It was getting dark, so I knew I had to hurry. I fought my way north through rush-hour traffic, congested with exhaust-puffing people-packed colectivos racing in front of me and along all sides. I expertly dodged fruit vendors, who insisted on remaining between the lanes of transit undelineated by any visible marking, and had no time to stop and try their succulent goods for fear I might never find my obscure destination among these narrow streets.

As I got into the heart of Conchali the roads were teeming with tan-skinned children playing soccer, using parked cars as goal posts along main streets. Eventually, though, the streets got smaller until even the tiny Suzuki was a tight fit. Very few cars were there inside the comuna, and the ones that were had found spots on the sidewalks in front of a few of the miniature row houses.

Each home here boasted a neat little patch of yard or patio, covered with grass or pavers depending on the tastes of its owners, and was made of cement, whitewashed with painted trim. I parked in front of Humberto's place, which was beautifully adorned with flowering plants, and immediately he thrust his broad shoulders and smiling face out from a second floor window to greet me. His tall frame looked awkwardly large jutting out of such a diminutive structure and from such a low second story window. But as I made my way inside I began to realize that size was relative, and soon became quite comfortable in such a little space, even though it was filled with people.

Humberto's mom and dad couldn't have been more gracious and inviting. After hugs and smiles, they led me to a courtyard behind the kitchen and I was offered a beer mixed with Orange Fanta. I accepted, although the thought of drinking it made my stomach turn. I found out it was a common blend in these parts, so I leaned down to take a sip. I looked up from the glass to find I was suddenly surrounded by family. Sisters and a brother, and lots of children were there. Each was excited to meet me since they'd already heard about me from Humberto and other relatives who I met while in the States; Humberto has a sister and nieces who live in Miramar.

While we drank, Humberto's mom tended the kitchen, where she was making chicken and garbanzos in an oversized pot on top of an apartment-sized stove. The dinner was tasty, and as it turned out I started to really enjoy the orange beer concoction once my stomach was full. We retired to the back pation, and before I knew it we were drinking pisco sours well into the evening. My plan of hitting the highway for the coast that evening to beat the morning traffic got blurred and slowly melted away to nothing.

In the morning, I popped some Tylenol and drank about a gallon of water to ease my pounding head. Then I stepped outside. The entire family had gathered once again at the house to see us off. I took pictures of each of them, which later I made copies of and mailed to them in frames. The sky was clear blue, and the late spring air was crisp. Humberto and I stuffed ourselves into that little Suzuki, and being followed by about 10 children from the comuna we made our way from back alley to main street. Eventually, as the children got distracted by another group of kids playing soccer in an empty lot, we passed them and made our way out of Conchali on the circular Americo Vespucio. By my calcualations, we could hit route 78 on the other side of Maipu and we'd be in San Antonio by noon.

An exhausting arrival in Mexico

After the plane landed in Mexico City's main airport I had no idea what to expect. This was my first flight to another country. I'd been to Mexico before, but only to the border city of Jaurez and never into the heart of the country. It was the summer of 1998, and I was just graduating from a small university in western Pennsylvania, traveling to Cuernavaca for a course in advanced Spanish grammar and Mexican cultural studies.

Cuernavaca is a city that lies on the southern slope of the Sierra Madre mountains, just across the continental divide and an hour south of the capital. It's usually called the city of the eternal spring for its normally temperate climate. But when I arrived the land was arid and smoke filled the air for miles in all directions due to out-of-control brush fires that had been set by farmers trying to clear small plots of land for planting.

As the bus descended into the upper part of the city, passing a roundabout featuring a noble statue of Emiliano Zapata, my nostrils started to feel the burn of those distant flames, and I began to have trouble breathing the thin, parched air. Still, I hung my head out of the window trying to soak in all the rich sites of this mysterious place, wanting to orient myself but becoming increasingly dizzy by the sheer enormity of strange new visions stretched out before me.

The streets of Cuernavaca are tight and winding, filled, overflowing with pedestrians, with thin sidewalks backed by high walls covering much of the city's inner beauty. Eventually, the bus turned onto ever smaller streets and alleys until we reached the Centro Bilingue, where groups of families eagerly waited in the courtyard for their arriving "son" or "daughter".

Some of my classmates were greeted by entire clans, complete with parents, children, aunts and uncles. The "mama" who awaited me was an elderly widow who stood alone, displaying a shy smile and outstretched arms. She hugged me as if we'd known each other for years, and after brief introductions she took my arm and led me out into the street and in the direction of home.

I thought we'd get into a car, like most of the other families did, but instead we walked down one street, up another and then down yet another, winding through neighborhoods and commercial districts until we found the busiest street in town. Finally, after just a few strides on Alvaro Obregon, we entered through an iron gate that led directly to a descending outdoor staircase covered the entire length by flowering bougainvillea.

Once we reached the bottom, we crossed a cement bridge to the second level of the house, passing above the downstairs courtyard. This patio led to a front door and yet another staircase, this one inside a beautifully decorated home, which took us into the main living area. To my surprise, the attached dining room was filled with at least 20 people apparently celebrating someone's birthday. I wasn't going to be an only child after all.

I was extremely tired by this point and wanted nothing more than to take a nap, but instead I was whisked around the party and introduced to every member of this large extended family and several servants. The food was incredible: flautas, sopes, rice and refried beans, tortillas, cake and more. I stuffed myself, took lots of pictures, and was interviewed by nearly everyone there. I was forced to use my Spanish more than I ever had while living in Miami the year before, and I struggled with this new dialect. My head hurt, but I stuck in there like a trooper until the very last person had gone. Then my adopted mom led me outside to an adjoined cottage that would be my summer home, and I plopped down on the bed and dozed off while listening to news on the radio.

I awoke several hours later; it was dark and the house next door was quiet. I went in to see what was going on and found three of my new family members sitting in front of a flickering television set. They were glued there watching the telenovela Esmeralda, so I decided I shouldn't interrupt. Instead I headed out to the street in search of my first adventure.

At the top of the staircase I quickly hailed one of what seemed to be dozens of passing taxicabs. I remembered vaguely someone at the school earlier in the day had warned us not to hail cabs but to call radio taxes. They couldn't have meant me, I thought, as I told the driver to step on it and take me to the Zocalo at the center of town.

The place was a circus of activity. Couples and families were walking in circles around the main square, and lovers were sitting on park benches making out beneath the street lamps but partially hidden among the bushes and trees. Mariachis were wandering about, approaching some who paid "un pesito" for a song and entertaining anyone within earshot by default.

A lone child with filthy cheeks and a bright smile approached me while I was trying to take advantage of this wonderful free concert, and I gave him a peso for a small packet of gum. Within seconds there was a herd of them, all under the age of eight, chanting "chicle, chicle, chicle, chicle", almost in unison, until I gave in and bought some from each and every one.

This set me in motion, as I became hip to the fact that a moving target was tougher to hit. No one could ask me things while I was walking, but if I stopped on of a slew of vendors was there ready to beg me to buy some touristy object or another. Some of the stuff was cool to look at, but once I bought something I knew I'd attract ten more trying to sell me the same thing, so I just decided to keep to myself, for now.

I wandered past the Palacio del Gobierno and the Cathedral, which were at either end of the great plaza, and I stopped to listen as amateur men tried their hand at belting out boleros at the main gazebo across the street. They were booed from the stage if they sung off key or couldn't keep to the beet of the mariachis. But some were quite good, and were cheered to continue through to the end of the song. The applause made most men blush, and I began to think I was going to like the humility of the Mexican people, which noticeably from the start stood in contrast to the pride emitted by many Americans, myself included.

After a couple of hours of people watching, and tasting the local flavors offered by street vendors, I hailed a cab for home. This time my driver took a different route, and I felt anxious due to my inability to figure out my north from my south, east from west. Eventually, though, he got me home, and I sat beneath the bougainvillea for a while before heading down those long steps again. I didn't want to go to sleep, but I knew I must. Classes were to start in the morning, and I couldn't be late for my first day. So as I lay my weary head down on that firm feather pillow, my mind filled with thoughts anticipating a wonderful summer. The radio droned on. The smoky air filled my lungs. And soon, I was fast asleep and dreaming.

Independent from what?

The Fourth of July today represents independence for many, but it's really more about a fight for ownership. At the origin of Independence Day is a group of wealthy colonists, from 13 different places, the colonies--which are now referred to as states but probably more exactly should have been thought of as countries then--who got together to tell the government that founded those places they were no longer going to be controlled by them. These men, who were among an elite minority group of people, wielded power over hordes of others who had no power, nor independence. And by them declaring independence for their colonies they were simply taking control of the dependent people who resided in their domain. There was a shift of ownership, but it was hardly a declaration of independence for all of us, as we are somehow led to believe today.

Fortunately it didn't stop there, and a constitution was forged by thoughtful intellectuals who would ultimately give even common people a cause to fight for their own independence as equals in a free society. But the confines of a fight for control of power and of wealth that bound those men together to declare independence from the British still binds the wealthy of this country to fight for their own share of wealth from the United States government. Republicans and Democrats alike are guilty of using political control to shift wealth from one owner unto themselves, and in the wake of such institutional greed common people continue to drown in a system that favors patriarchy and disregards the poor. Spewing rhetoric about the rights of man makes these people feel they are fighting for the common good; everyone has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but not to equal access to healthcare, and certainly not equal access to capital.

Last night, on my way home from work at a sleazy bar in Fort Lauderdale, where I spend 5 hours a week keeping hustlers and panhandlers from bothering patrons who can afford to drown the miseries of their wealth in buckets of liquor and beer, I looked the other way as the legless beggar at the southbound I-95 Kennedy Causeway exit hurriedly wheeled toward my car, trying to catch me and a few others before the light turned green. With car insurance and rent due, with my cell phone cut off and bill collectors sending me ever brighter colored envelopes, I felt I couldn't afford to turn his way, even though I knew I couldn't afford not to. I wanted to empty my pockets for him, but he would've been satisfied with a quarter. I'm certainly not satisfied with having done nothing. But it was Independence Day, and I was counting on the Mercedes S-Class of people to do their part. Maybe they don't want to help me in this next election by voting for a politician who might persuade Congress to do something about its years-long negligence of the subcompact-car-driving, parttime-job-working set. But with their amount of excess even they can't ignore such roadside displays of human degradation. Can they?

Holding on for one more day

Waking up in that apartment was never easy. Mice scattered across the room as my feet hit the floor, and before I could muster enough courage to see if the bathroom was free of crazy people I'd already decided I'd be better off staying in bed. But then again, that would be no prize either. Only if I could get to sleep quickly, ignore the fact that the broken spring protruding from deep within that smelly, urine-stained mattress was bruising my back, could I find any pleasure in staying at home. No, it was better to force myself to that shower, so I tippy-toed on my flip-flops across that dirty shag carpet and stepped into the grimy, once-white but never clean bathtub and closed the mildew-stained shower curtain behind me, trying with all my might to keep my backside from touching it or the scummy walls.

I was always scared one of my Section 8, loony-bin reject neighbors would come barging in that warped-wood door that never seemed to latch just right. But today I didn't think of it. It was too cold, and parts of my skin not touching that lukewarm water were shivering in the chilling breeze that passed through the cracked window pane, which was only loosely covered with plastic and patched up with masking tape. So when Jerry walked in and started screaming at the sight of me I didn't have time to be surprised or angry. I was just glad my time in that place was done, at least for today. I grabbed my towel, wrapped it quickly around my waist, and jetted back to my room as fast as I could.

How had this life happened to me, I thought. Only a little more than a year had passed since I was living in the veritable lap of luxury at my father's suburban Washington, D.C., home, taking showers in a clean, blue-tiled stall with beveled glass doors that looked out a small window onto a lush green golf course and the tree-lined road leading up to the club house. What had I done to deserve this exile? And more importantly, what could be done to get myself out of the mess and squalor that now surrounded me?

For now, I was going to have to work. I had quit high school in my senior year in order to free myself from the perceived oppression I'd felt at the feet of tired, underpaid, bureaucratic educators. And I hadn't been happy at home. I did all I could to get kicked out. I know now it wasn't so bad, but somewhere between the bourgeois existence I'd been living at my dad's house and the working middle-class life I'd experienced for years living with my mom I'd never gained a real perspective of what life could be like without such amenities as a split-level ranch or colonial revival home could provide.

My rebellion had gotten me here. But it was hard work, I would learn, that would get me out. So as I picked my clean clothes out of the laundry bag to get ready for the mile-long walk to work that night, I was keenly aware of the even longer road that lay ahead of me if I was ever going come out on top.

I was living in an old house, or rather in a small room in an old house, on the edge of a tiny town that was on the far edge of an only slightly larger town, called Hanover, where my mom still lived in one of the better neighborhoods. I remembered with a laugh how my friends used to refer to it as the "richie" section. There, I had lived on a quiet bend of a road lined with fruit trees, calm sidewalks and two-car garages. Where I lived now, houses had been built smack against thin sidewalks separated from the street only by a crumbling curb. And tractor trailers spit their exhaust fumes into the air and splashed puddles onto passing pedestrians, if there were any pedestrians, as they raced to nearby factories.

I usually walked to work with my headphones on, listening to well-worn tapes by R.E.M., Depeche Mode, Sinead O'Conner or the Ocean Blue. I would sing and walk to the beat, and somehow push out all thoughts of the misery of home. That night was no exception. Mine was the midnight shift, so it was dark as I made my way down that long stretch of roadway to the one traffic light in town, where I'd usually get my dinner at Hardee's before clocking in at the convenience store across the street. Taking over from a fat lady named Sue, who barely had more teeth than the number of letters in her name, I put on my smock, found the bucket and mop in the storeroom and started to clean up before I started on the sandwiches.

We'd get a rush somewhere between three and four in the morning, as bread, potato chip and pretzel truck drivers would be making their way from the factories out to Baltimore, Harrisburg and Washington. These places seemed so distant as I stood there behind the counter making hundreds of hoagies, wrapping them in wax paper and cellophane, and labeling them one by one. How I wanted to be in D.C., hanging out on the Mall amidst all the monuments and museums, soaking in all that culture, like I'd done so many times before when I lived with my father and would sneak away on the Metrorail afternoons after soccer practice. But here, in McSherrystown, I felt like I was in a jail of my own making, one I felt I deserved.

It may seem trite, but music helped me through those long, cold months, which fortunately turned out to be a purgatory rather than a hell, as I'd started to believe. That night, as I mopped the floor in the early morning, listening to the radio while so many others were asleep or on the road making their deliveries, I was open to change. I was close to the phone as the announcer said he'd give away tickets to an upcoming Sinead O'Conner concert in Washington if the next caller knew the answer to some easy trivia question. I called in. And I won. I remember that moment so clearly, although the question and answer escaped me almost instantaneously. But that wasn't important then, and it isn't now. Because at that moment I realized I was finally going to escape from that small little town after all. I realized I had luck on my side; I'd always known I had the drive.

I got back to work. Happier, but still miserable. Some drunk rednecks had come in an made a mess of the place. And as Wilson Phillips crooned to me in the background while I mopped up some jerk's puke, I heard them singing the mantra that would help me make it to the next phase in my life. "I know that there is pain, but if you hold on for one more day you'll break free from the chains."

In the morning, I stopped at Hardee's again, downed a chicken-fried steak biscuit, and started back down that sidewalk toward home. As I walked up those creaking steps and put the key into the lock, I held my breath for a moment knowing my mood might be broken by the sight of mouse droppings in my bed. I tried to be optimistic. But even optimism couldn't make my situation better, so I marched back downstairs, headed back to the convenience store a mile away, where the only working pay phone in town was located, and called my mother to come pick me up.

Mom helped me find a better place to live that day, and I stayed in Hanover for another month or so. Then I was off to college, and my life slowly started to take shape. That was twelve years ago, but I've never forgotten the experience of living in that hole. And I'll never forget that night when I gained the courage and the insight to get myself out of it once and for all.

Guide me, but don't lead

I've said before that I hate to follow. I would like to qualify that statement. I'm not opposed to seeking guidance. But when you follow a leader, you allow that leader to make decisions of where you can and cannot go. Leaders, in my opinion, should be more like guides, rather than gatekeepers. In fact, we should all look to ourselves to lead, and seek guides along the way who will help us reach our desired destination and not try to take us to theirs.

As a teacher, I try to adhere to this philosophy. My students are not here as pawns to be placed into a course of study that I know will ultimately take them to an understanding of English as I perceive it. I am here to guide them on the path to understanding the English they encounter in their world. This will ultimately be more fulfilling for them, and the experience will be more rewarding for us all.

I've had language teachers along the way, especially in French, who set forth a plan of study that started with one point of "simple" grammar and continued down a linear direction to a place of more "complex" grammar. They intended for me to become fluent in the language. And when I say they, I mean all of my French teachers, who had learned to instruct in this way from others who had learned to instruct in this way, and so on. Following their lead, I eventually learned to read and to write, but I was never able to speak until I was put into a real world scenario, until I had to rely on my own instincts.

When it came to Spanish, I was my own instructor. I plotted my course, traveled the road in my own way, bouncing from complex to simple structures and back again without regard to the proper, established rules of how one learns Spanish and its grammar. All the textbooks I looked at were slow and artificially based on an author's invented contexts, as my French courses had often been. After learning the sounds of the Spanish alphabet and its pronunciation, I decided I wanted to study verbs first. Then I looked at the nouns that were present in my world, and I started to build a real understanding of the language. I became fluent rapidly, and didn't have to wait for someone to test me and tell me if I was ready or not. I spoke, and I was understood. I listened, and I could understand.

I know there are obviously moments in time where following a leader is the only good option, but I think more often than not I am my own best leader. I trust my instincts and am skeptical of those who say their way is the one and only option. Even I don't think my way is always the best way, but I do know I am capable of making good choices by researching and investigating, and most importantly, by following my heart.

There are many out there who have taught me, and there are many others from whom I will learn more lessons in life. But rather than leaders that I follow, I consider them guiding partners, just as I consider my students to be partners with me in their education. I am available to help them at all points along the way, but I encourage them to seek the answers themselves, and not to be arbitrarily lead by me or by any other teacher. By leading themselves through their studies they are more likely to be satisfied and to not only accomplish what they set out to do but also reap all the fruits of their efforts.

Nairb Sivad's Summer Reading

I've been reading a few books this summer that some of you might enjoy. Here's a short list:

1. World On Fire, Amy Chua

I wrote about this book in my first blog entry, titled "No More Hurt Humans". It's an incredible, eye-opening book on current affairs that reveals a lot about how the United States is perceived by non-American world citizens. Yale professor Chua, an American whose family is ethnic Chinese from the Philippines, draws you in from the start with a story of her aunt's murder at the hands of her servants that serves as a base example of the main theme of the book--backlash against market-dominant minorities.

2. How the Scots Invented the Modern World, Arthur Herman

For years I've been focusing my studies on the origins of other people in the communities where I live, to gain greater understanding of their language and culture. Now I'm ready for a little me time. Half of my maternal ancestors are from Scotland. My grandmother lived in Edinburgh, and I've grown up hearing about Leith and the Firth of Forth. This book is a long overdue venture into my own roots. And it's an excellent read whether your Scottish or not as it reveals much about the origins of things we take for granted in our daily lives.

3. Language and Politics, Noam Chomsky

I'm just starting to read this book, which was first published in 1973. Chomsky is considered the father of modern linguistics and his theory of Universal Grammar--that all humans are born with a common grammar inside their brain, the language organ--is still highly debated today. This book is a compilation of interviews dating back to the Vietnam War era with updates of interviews through 2002. He uses bulletproof logic to argue against war and reveals the truth that is so skillfully blocked by rhetoric-spewing politicians and propagandists.

4. Travels in a Thin Country, Sarah Wheeler

This is a light, well-written travelogue that follows this young woman's lone trek from the desert north of Chile to its cold, harsh tip at Patagonia, including its claimed territory in Antarctica. For those who know nothing about Chile you will be amazed to learn about its history through characters she meets along the way. For those who have experienced the wonder of this thin country, tightly bound by mountains and sea, you will read this book with knowing joy.

The Road Best Traveled

I can't understand why so many people spend half their lives bitching and moaning about having a terrible commute. We all have choices in life. We can choose where to work, where to live, and if our commute just doesn't work out the way we like it we can always alter one or both of the choices we have made. And if changing a job or moving is simply not an option, we can choose sometimes to change our route, change the times we travel, or maybe just change our attitudes. There is no reason to just bore everyone else around you by complaining how bad your commute is every morning when you arrive at work and every afternoon you're heading home.

My current commute is an easy one, relatively hassle free. But then again, I planned it perfectly this time around after having a few real attitude killers. When I got a new job recently at a local college, I moved to an area I knew would have a pleasant commute. From my apartment I can just hop onto Alton Road where it catches Indian Creek around 65th, and follow its winding, palm-lined four lanes through a beautiful residential neighborhood until I get to Mount Sinai Hospital, around 45th Street. Then I take the Julia Tuttle Causeway, a.k.a. I-195, west across a flat stretch of pavement that seems to skim the surface of Biscayne Bay to the city of Miami. Bridges to allow boat traffic rise high above the water on either end of the Tuttle, revealing spectacular views of Miami's downtown, South Beach's east and west skylines and even Bal harbor to the north. Beyond the second lift, I hook a left on I-95, scoot quickly into the right lanes and catch the Dolphin Expressway, a.k.a the 836, west to the 27th Avenue south exit. From there it's just about 16 blocks to the corner of SW 7th Street where the college sits at the entrance to Little Havana.

The entire ride takes about 15 minutes, maybe 25 in rush hour, so on days when I'm not in a hurry I take alternate routes. If I just have a little extra time I like to exit the Dolphin on 17th Street, and maybe stop for a coffee somewhere on Flagler. I turn right, to go west on Flagler, and ramble past the old mom-and-pop shops that line this otherwise unknown local part of the city. Then I take a soft left around 22nd Avenue, on Beacom Boulevard, a rare diagonal route that leads directly to the college.

To be honest, this is one of my easiest commutes, and probably the most beautiful and picturesque. I especially like taking the Tuttle. After a morning rain, there is always a rainbow stretching high into the sky somewhere out west, above the Everglades, and the sky reflects off the bay's glossy smooth patina. It's one of my favorite stretches of urban highway in the country. My favorite, I think, is the Pulaski Skyway, which flies above two rivers, the wetlands and industrial port facilities in Kearny to link downtown Newark with the entrance of the Holland Tunnel in Jersey City. While it seems the Pulaski in Metro Jersey and the Tuttle in Miami couldn't be more different, they are actually quite similar. The eastbound Pulaski provides incredible views of Manhattan, and on clear days you can see bridges and rooftops in all directions. The Watchung Mountains can be traced along the horizon when heading west, and Newark's downtown and the Passaic River sparkle in the sunset. The Pulaski has charm on overcast and drizzly days, too, as the sight of several skylines transform into paintings as if brought forth from the imagination by an impressionist's brush.

I realize others who travel these paths on a daily basis might not agree with my optimistic, almost romantic estimation of these two commutes. Sure, there's traffic. Sure, I get cut off by idiots using their cell phones and hyper-passed by crazed sports-car driving maniacs every day. But the makings of a good commute, any commute, depends heavily on how you view your world. Are you just driving through, trying to force your way through the traffice? Or are you going to be a part of the bigger picture, and take part in the world around you? As for me, I plan ahead, take my time and always choose the road best traveled.

Grit Makes Cities Great

For the past year, since my return to Miami after a two-year stint in Newark, I've been looking for signs of a mature city, something that would draw memories of the Northeast. I came south to escape the snow, but I'm really missing the grit of a city with some miles on her. In Miami, so much of history lies in the last 50 years, and the focus is more directed to one glaring aspect--its chance relationship with the cold war and growth as a transnational suburb in exile of Havana--while tourism has flourished to disguise this fact to the rest of the country. There is also a visible history here, from 20th Century architecture to a unique blending of Latin American nationalities. But Newark, which has lived a sort of transnational existence itself, hosting wave after wave of newly arrived immigrants throughout each of the American centuries, is somehow more deeply layered, more complex.

Newark, arguably the downtown of metro New Jersey, has a tight, defined city center, with brick buildings dating back to the 1600s, interspersed with structures of varying degrees of modernity and use, and roads leading out in all directions to cities of major importance to both the colonial and industrial eras. Major routes run in eight directions: north through Passaic, Paterson and Hackensack; northeast through Union City, West New York and the Bronx; east through Jersey City, Manhattan and Brooklyn; southeast through Bayonne and Staten Island, south through Elizabeth, New Brunswick and Perth Amboy; southwest through the Plainfields; west through Irvington, Summit and Morristown; and northwest through the Oranges, Bloomfield and Montclair.

Built up before cars and trucks came to clog northeast Jersey's network of roads, Newark, as a city in constant evolution and transition, has an urban landscape that came alive during industrialization and all but died in the wake of suburbanization. The highways here were built as afterthoughts, along rivers, through blighted neighborhoods and atop long bridges of rusting steel. Roads curve and dip, one below the other, emerging again out of cold, cracked cement marked sporadically with graffiti and stained with chemical runoff. In the midst of all this, a new urbanism is taking place that does little to sweep aside the scars characteristic of such a harsh history, so they remain visible, unique marks of progress for current generations to marvel, to learn from and to admire.

Miami, too, has its history, its unique built environment, its culture. But one must look harder to see it, study more deeply to understand it and ultimately be willing to go off the beaten path to discover what lies beneath its glossy skin. While geography won't permit such a radiant existence for Miami--the Everglades hem in the west, the Keys are the end of the road just a few hundred miles to the south, and in the east there is just blue ocean, with paths only known to ships and sailing vessels--the city radiates in other ways. Within these natural boundaries a city has formed with distinct design. Above the surface, it seems Miami is jailed within an inflexible grid, with Miami Avenue on the x axis and Flagler on the y. But on the ground there is variation as the Miami River, Biscayne Bay and an old network of canals, as well as the Interstate 95 and several freeways, cut off parts of each quadrant at irregular intervals that defy logic or reason. Through it all, neighborhoods survive in a sort of organized chaos among the constant beauty of sky, plants and water even as half-century old cement structures in some places beg for paint and a little more care.

For better or for worse, redevelopment is underway in select neighborhoods of both Newark and Miami. Their characters will evolve, as Miami sets to open its doors on a new cultural center and opera house and Newark works to expand its subway and light rail network. But what makes the future for each of these cities so interesting are the roots of their respective pasts. So I'll keep on searching for grit in Miami, because I know it's there. It's in Overtown and Liberty City, Opa Locka and Hialeah. I've seen it in Allapattah and Little Havana, too. Hell, it's even in Coral Gables, Coconut Grove and Miami Beach, if you know where to look. So Miami may never compare to the great cities of the northeast, just as U.S. cities could never compare to the great gritty cities of Europe. But in time Miami's own brand of grit will become fully known, and it will truly earn its position as one of the great cities of the Americas.

At Home with the Flow

North Beach has a certain flow. It's the kind of place where traffic and people congest the neighborhood streets and sidewalks, and there's a real arterial feel. So even as we sit and congregate at restaurants, bars and coffee shops, planning our next walk upon the sand, it somehow seems as if we're all just passing through.

Northbound Collins, the main vein, is an oceanfront semi-expressway lined with high rise condos and hotels, many lying in a state of decay only slightly masked by the intent of redevelopment and signs meant to entice passersby to cash in on pre-construction savings. The Beatles stayed here in the 60s, and now developers call the style of architecture MiMo, or Miami Modern. Some new buildings are actually under construction, and a new luxury set moving into four new high rise developments could change the otherwise workforce aspect of this area within the next year.

By now I've lived in nearly all the extremities of NoBe, South Beach's oft ignored sister to the north. When I first came here in 1996, I lived in the historic Olsen building, then a pre-renovation example of art deco on Ocean Terrace, a two block stretch along the ocean from 73rd to 75th Street. The place gentrified, as the "low-class" tenants, myself included, were displaced when the city condemned it in 2000. Later I moved to a cottage apartment on Normandy Isle, which is a more family-oriented neighborhood just west of the main beach areas on 71st Street. This area is best known for its quaint restaurant district, centered by a fountain, the site of a weekly farmer's market. My new apartment, a studio in a small, run down three story building of garden apartments--with a lush, if overgrown, courtyard and a pool--is located near the southernmost end of the North Beach area, near the classic Casablanca and Sherry Frontenac hotels.

NoBe has in recent years been referred to as Little Buenos Aires due to the en masse migration from Argentina of the past five years, spurred by that country's all-but total economic collapse in 2001. In a short time, these immigrants have helped transform the area from an up-and-coming community to a vibrant first-class city neighborhood complete with a variety of restaurants, shops and confiterias, or coffee shops. Before the Argentines there were outposts of successful businesses, run by Cubans, Venozuelans and others, but the Argentines have filled in the gaps of underdevelopment along the main corridors of commerce in this part of the city, even launching transnational franchise operations here.

This is the place where I first learned Spanish. In the Olsen, I found a community of recently arrived Cubans, one of whom took me in when I was broke and after my car broke down. He spoke little English, and only recently had been released from a year's stay at the Guatanamo Bay refugee camp, which followed a brief but harrowing raft escape from his country's oppressive government. I spoke no Spanish, and only recently had arrived after having escaped from a monolingual Stepford community up north. My committing a cultural faux pas ultimately forced me to learn his language. He refused to communicate with me in English after that, and I began to study Spanish so at the very least I could understand what had gone wrong.

I moved down the street into a shady oceanfront motel; this place wasn't in the shade of palms, it was full of folks with shady intent. In fact, the only redeeming qualities here for me were good air conditioning and an abundance of Spanish language television channels, and so I commenced my studies. With a dictionary and phrase book, and a book of verb drills, I would sit each evening and watch telenovelas and do various exercises to increase fluency. After a month I returned to Antonio's apartment and asked, "Porque te enojaste conmigo?", or "why did you get angry with me?" He explained that I had lit a candle in front of his parents' picture. In Cuba, he said, candles are lit for the dead. By placing the candle in front of the living, I was somehow wishing their demise. I wanted to argue with him at first, for having fought with me over such an arbitrary misunderstanding, for not realizing that my culture had different views on candles, and that by placing one there, in front of the family he left behind, I wanted to shed light on them. But I soon learned to go with the flow. There was no fighting it. So I moved out, not bitter, but ready to learn from my mistakes.

Over the next eight months of my "first time" in Miami, I really broke my proverbial cherry. I lived in probably eight different apartments, with maybe 15 different people representing nearly all the Latin American nationalities. I moved in with a Venezuelan girl near North Shore Park, somewhere in the upper 70s and west across Harding Avenue. Then I lived with a Chilean guy on Normandy Isle. I shared an apartment with two guys from the Dominican Republic and a Nicaraguan. I even tried South Beach for a while, first with an Argentine and a Colombian in a run down place on West Avenue with no electricity, and then with a Brazilian in a less run down apartment on Pennsylvania Avenue, between Lincoln Road and Espanola Way.

Still, I always go back to North Beach. My second time around I enjoyed a more tranquil existance in a small "mother-in-law" cottage behind a home on Normanday Isle. Now I'm back again. There's just something about that flow. And every time I take a step out on the crushed coral sand and seek silence at that glistening blue-green shorelline amidst the impulsive sound of Salsa, Merengue, Son or Rumba blasting from someone's boom box, I feel, more or less, at home.

Follow the Nostalgic Smile

This morning I met with the chairperson of the linguistics department at a local university. I wanted to find out if their program was right for me, and perhaps more importantly, if I was right for their program. I honestly didn't know what to expect. So I set out from Miami Beach, with optimism in the passenger seat of my tiny egg-shaped hatchback, past downtown Miami and west along the Tamiami Trail to the main campus of FIU and my meeting with Dr. Feryal Yavas.

The dense air moistened my skin as I hoofed it from the parking garage to the Deuxieme Maison, where the linguistics program is housed. How fitting, I thought, that the buildings were given foreign words as names (and not just Spanish ones, as I've come to expect as the rule in Miami). I asked directions from a guy taking cover under the awning of the student union during a quick but torrential downpour. "Oh, you mean DM," he said, motioning for me to follow him as the shower turned to sprinkles and the sidewalk became covered in tiny rainbows. "I'm heading there, too."

At first I was reluctant. I hate to follow. But within moments, I knew it was a good idea. We walked more or less in silence through a network of covered walkways to avoid the rain, which in just five minutes came in as many intensities. I'd have been drenched without him. Then we took a "short cut" through Primera Casa, or PC, emerging seconds later smack dab in front of the grand DM. The cement structure was just four stories tall, painted drab grey and centered round a tropical courtyard. My temporary guide and I hopped into a waiting elevator and he almost slipped out of his wet flip flops before catching himself on a woman who must not have been shown the covered passages--she was soaking wet, cerulean blue makeup streaking her plump cheeks as she lifted damp hair back into a ponytail to ring out the excess dew. They both got off on the third floor, and I continued on to the fourth, anxious but intent on meeting my fate.

My shoes were squeaking, which bugged me and tweeked my mounting anxiety. I wasn't so much nervous she wouldn't like me; I'm usually good with first impressions. And it wasn't that I thought she'd outwit me; though I may lack some technical knowledge in linguistics I can usually wow 'em with pure language. It was that I've been twisting my guts up for the past few years trying to decide what course of action to take next in my life--and from what friends have told me, picking the right program is essential for happiness and success. So now that I'm ready to make a commitment it would just suck, I thought, if this option would turn out less than optimal.

In my social sphere, I'm pretty much the only one obsessed with studying languages. I have friends who majored in Spanish in college, and I know a slew of folks who are currently in the process of acquiring or teaching a second language. But they, the teachers as well as the students, somehow seem to focus exclusively on the mechanics of language. I get the mechanics, too, but what I'm practically blinded by is the magic of language. So as I stepped into Dr. Yavas' office I was hoping to find a woman who wasn't so involved and experienced in the study of languages that she was no longer mystified--or at the very least, someone who would appreciate my more down-to-earth perspective.

When I arrived, Dr. Yavas was there in the waiting area of the department speaking in hushed tones to one of the secretaries. I didn't know it was her at first, but when I presented myself she turned toward me with a nod, asking that I wait a moment for her to finish up and she'd be right with me. I went to sit in the corridor, and read a newspaper clip about a student who'd done research on bilingualism while at this same institution a few years back. Her focus was apparently comparing the Spanish/English bilingualism of South Florida and the Welsh/English bilingualism of some town across the pond. It looked interesting, but I couldn't really focus on it. My mind was already inside that room.

When I was finally called for my meeting--it was really just moments later--it dawned on me that I hadn't figured out Dr. Yavas's country of origin based on her name, nor could I now say where she was from based on her accent, although I could tell it wasn't native to the United States. All I could think was "ya vas" could mean "you're already going" in Spanish, but I'd never heard it used as a surname. She was a diminutive middle-aged woman with a polite demeanor, and she led me to her office with a smile. As I sat in front of her desk, she said with a sigh, "Well...".

I took my cue and started telling her why I was interested in the linguistics program at FIU, although I really wanted to quiz her, find out if she was still in love with language after having spent so much time in academia. But it was my turn to talk, to be judged. She sat patiently in front of me, framed by a huge plate glass window, which was dotted with beads of moisture and revealed the brightest blue sky, full of fluffed grey and white clouds, the broken-up leftovers of that passing storm. I was slightly distracted by the scene, but regained focus, and a delightful conversation ensued, encompassing a variety of language-related topics, the most relevant one to her being why I was interested in their program.

This is a complicated subject, to be sure, but I was going to try to be succinct. I started to explain that I am interested in studying what factors led to greater or lesser success in adults learning a second language. In particular, I told her, I want to study languages that are present in the New World, you know, the post-Colonial remnant. I told her I am fascinated by language mixing, especially Spanglish, which is the U.S.-driven dialectical mixture of Spanish and English, and also Portanhol, which is a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish found on the border of Uruguay and Brazil and also in metro New Jersey and the Jersey Shore.

Truth be told, these and many other reasons simply describe why I want to study in general. But I didn't know exactly why I would be interested in their program until Dr. Yavas started to reveal a little bit about herself. She told me she has lived as an immigrant not just in this country but also in Brazil. She said she is Turkish and that she lived in the south of Brazil, in Porto Alegre, for ten years, where she bore a "Brazilian" son. Because of this--Porto Alegre is nearish to the Uruguayan border--she had some insight into Portanhol, and could relate more concretely to my interests. She also seemed slightly impressed that I was interested in studying Turkish, and that with her guidance I would be interested in studying Turkish second-language learners in the United States and Brazil in order to draw comparisons on each groups's acquisition experiences with two different target languages given their common language-of-origin.

Time was running out, though, and she thanked me for coming in before we'd had a chance to draw any conclusions about my visit. She encouraged me to get my application in right away, and led me out of her office and into the lobby. I then thanked her in my unpolished Turkish. "So where did you learn your Turkish?" she asked. To this I just gave a quick answer that was only partly true. "I listen to the music." We threw around a couple of names we both knew, she smiled a nostalgic smile, and I left.

As I walked away, I continued to struggle with my answers. There was so much more to talk about, so much more to the story. But as I stood there on the fourth floor balcony, leaning over the concrete-slab guard rail to help regain my balance as my head went spinning, I was ultimately left with some comfort. It just felt right. I may not know exactly the whats and the why fors of my interest in language, or of my desire to pursue graduate studies in linguistics, but at that moment I was reminded of exactly why I love learning languages. There is such comfort revealed in the nostalgic smile of an immigrant stranger. And by speaking a stranger's language, and by knowing, even superficially, the culture of one who has traveled so far and left so much behind, I am somehow connected to my own family's immigrant past, a hundred years, thousands of miles and a million memories ago.

Confession of a Contact Addict

I'm a job hopper. At 32, I've already held somewhere between 50 and 100 jobs. It's a fact that I used to try to cover up, scared my next employer would find out and not hire me. But as I get older I realize it's something that makes me uniquely me. Really, it's the thing about me that makes me most employable. I've worked with such a broad variety of people, and at all levels of the labor hierarchy, from mop boy to manager. So my experience helps me to be a sort of workplace expert. And the training I've gotten along the way has been priceless.

Despite what some may think, I'm not the guy who can't keep a job. It's just that I love to start new jobs. I thrive on it. I'm addicted to new adventures, new experiences. The thrill of first contact. Meeting new people gives me a rush.

I don't know where this addiction started, but I think I've traced it back to the fifth grade. That was the year I moved from a rural village to a big town, or rather, to a suburban tract on the outskirts of a big town. But in my mind, I had reached the big city. I'll never forget it. All at once I came to this realization that there there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of other kids out there, my own age, and the possibilities made me feel alive.

Most significant during this year was my exposure to the PBS program 3-2-1 Contact, which was to become an eye-opening weekly staple of school life for me that year. The theme song is still as vivid in my memory as it was the first day I heard it: "Contact, it's the reason; it's the moment, when everything happens." That program, that song, did it for me. The show was about science, but what drew me in most was all the talk about people, population trends, and all the variety of humanity there was out there in the world beyond Virginia. And I wanted to make contact with all of it.

A couple of years later, I met my first "foreigner" while living there, in Winchester. He was a Japanese kid from Okinawa who used to thumb through a tiny leather-bound bilingual dictionary, stumbling over every word he said. His dad had somehow got involved with an American woman in the military while still in Japan, and moved to the area to be with her. Keiyu would become my best friend. He played the trumpet, listened to Chopin and ate Ramen noodles, not Oreos, after school. I was so jealous of him (except for the noodle thing). I remember dreaming of what it would be like to live in another place; I imagined being transported somehow to another time, another culture, another state of mind.

Then, as I got a little older, I started to get interested in work, mostly because I thought it would be an interesting new social scene. But also because it was the only way to earn money for a car, or to buy a ticket to get out of that town, which was quickly growing too small. I wanted to find a new place, somewhere else. Make contact with more foreigners. Or better yet, become a foreigner myself.

I remember I wanted to work at Tony's Supermarket, which sponsored my soccer team. But I was too young, they said. So in another town, down the road and a few years later, I finally was able to get a work permit and landed a job at the local Dunkin' Donuts--this was back when the walls were dingy yellow, stained by the 24-hour smoke of a thousand donut eaters. I hated it. Scraping the vats of sugary fillings to make sure no bugs actually made it into the final product was my primary duty. This lasted two weeks.

In high school, I worked at the local McDonald's and Hardee's fast food chains, and eventually I worked midnight shift at Turkey Hill Mini Mart. I worked as a dishwasher at a local nursing home. Later, I was a camp counselor at two different camps, and I worked in after school daycare and as a van driver for the local YMCA. Once in college I worked at a Sheetz convenience store, and cleaned the gas pumps for a few weeks before being promoted to sandwich maker and then cashier. And I did time in a coffee house and a couple of restaurants along the way; training at T.G.I. Fridays and Houlihan's helped me learn to relate with people, artificially at least. And eventually I landed a gig writing press releases in my university's public relations office, and later edited the new for the student-run newspaper, The Penn.

There are probably at least a dozen jobs I didn't mention up to this point, and that only takes me to the age of 25, at which point I finally broke away for a while and made my way south, to Miami. I continued to job hop, and worked at Denny's before getting a job at a telephone relay service for the deaf and hearing impaired. And along the way, I worked for a few telemarketing companies; my experience in reputable places like Time Life Libraries and Dial America in Pittsburgh led me to a few shady "phone rooms" in South Florida before I wised up. But I don't regret these or any of my experiences, because they have become part of me.

Since then, I've held some pretty cool jobs. I've been an ESL teacher, a desk editor with a significant British trade magazine, and managing editor of three local weeklies in New Jersey. But I'm still yearning to make contact. So if you'd bet against me sticking with my current employer for too long, the odds would be in your favor. Give me two years, at most. But who knows. In any case, I'm not ashamed about my past, and won't be ashamed to move on from my current post if it means being true to myself.

What can I say? I'm a job hopper. And I like it that way. It's not about escape, and it's more than just the thrill of connecting. It's about finding something. Finding that no matter how many jumps I make, or how often I make them, I will never run out of contacts.

Stagnant and confused

Two of my best friends from college recently finished graduate school. I had always planned going back to school, and really thought I'd just take a year or two to decide what direction I wanted to take before committing to a program. I still can't commit.

I'm having trouble picking a program. It's not that I have a huge variety of interests. In fact, everything I want to study relates to my other interests in some way. But I have yet to find a school with a master's degree flexible enough to take all my interests into account.

I'll wake up on Monday with my love languages rising to the top of my list of likes, and I start leaning toward the study of linguistics. Maybe pure research. Maybe bilingualism and language acquisition. Maybe I could solve the problems of illiteracy.

Then on Tuesday, I'll wake up considering the plight of people in the underdeveloped world and I start to think about how I can help, beyond helping them all read. I think I'll study international relations so I can better understand how the world system, no matter what it is, continues to oppress the masses. Maybe I could figure out how to work toward peace and justice.

Then on Wednesday, it all feels overwhelming. I think maybe I should become a translator, and just live my life through the experiences of others, helping them to express themselves with the world out there--a world they for some god-awful reason want to get tangled up in--while I just sit at my computer and watch it all go by.

But then Thursday and Friday I end up thinking I should just leave my decision until after the weekend, when I'll have a clearer head. Yeah right, like that'll happen.