"Cause you make such a beautiful wreck you do..."

One of the perks of teaching is that I am in the middle of my winter break. Sure I've got papers to grade, lessons to plan, and books to read, but I was actually able to go home to Maryland and stay for almost five days. Today I got to spend the day in the city running errands, seeing movies, and shopping for 8 dollar boob accentuating tops.

Typically I don't go home to reconnect with people I once knew. A lot of people that I once knew don't always understand or like who I've become, and I get tired of trying to explain my new life and new paths. This visit home though was filled with people I once knew and a life long since left behind. Tuesday, I went out with my friend Kalenn, her husband of five years Kris, and their 11 month old baby Liesel. It was surreal. We sat in the booth at the diner discussing the DC metro area, Utah, Philadelphia and diversity while the baby cooed and gnawed on crackers and fruit. I've known Kalenn since we were 9 years old and taking piano lessons. We'd gone exploring in creeks together, passed notes in English class, danced in theater dressing rooms, and giggled evenings away. We never really realized how different our lives were. She grew up a strict mormon, and I a reform Jew with an atheist father.

At one point we drove to Rajvi's house. We had been a bad joke growing up: A mormon, a Jew, and a Hindu (walk into a bar... OW!) We ran to the side door, the same way we had when we were in elementary school with the same question dancing on our lips "Is Rajvi home??" She wasn't.

Later that day, we met up with Katie who had spent the day trying on wedding dresses. We all chatted about our respective lives and perspective futures.

Wednesday, I met up with Rajvi finally. It had been maybe five years since I'd last seen her. We talked about her boyfriend who was expected to be her fiancee in a few months. We talked about school. We reminiced about our childhood.

I learned something very profound in my tine with these ladies. In a lot of respects I have things complete under control. I have a good job doing what I love. I have a great apartment. I have my friends that I love. In a lot of other ways I am a beautiful wreck.

Day to day, I get a little sappy about my lack of love life. My mother tries to ask me about my most recent failed relationship and smooths things over with "well at least you were in love" type sentiments. The big thing I realized is that I never thought about being in love until this week. At 24, with so many people around me in serious committed relationships (in this entry I have not mentioned spending two days with a good friend in committed relationship of 2 years, my step-sister's boyfriend of 2 years spending christmas with my family, and my cousin's girlfriend of... 2 years... spending christmas with my family) I realize that I... I never really think about love in the long term. I mean if my ex hadn't run off to North Carolina I think we'd probably still be together, but I never planned for it. When I plan for the future I never think about anyone being there with me. I never think about marriage or kids or even "living in sin" with another person. I wonder what is wrong with me. I had friends in college who used to talk about their ideal weddings, and I could barely participate expcept to say that I like the outdoors and roses because they're my birth flower. My grandmother always told me not to get married until I had my life figured out. As my life slowly works its way into figured out, have I wasted too much time to get the love part figured out too?

I found Amy's Blog

So I rarely do shit like this anymore... but it's more interesting than grading...

If your life was a movie, what would the soundtrack be?
How to do it:1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc).2. Put it on Shuffle.3. Press Play.4. For every question, type the song that's playing.5. When you go to a new question, press the next button.6. Be honest.

My life is: Heaven Help Me

OPENING CREDITS
Cyndi Lauper- "Time After Time"
I picture bad 80's hair do's and diary writing. Oh yeah, and there's rain, lots and lots of rain.

WAKING UP
Howie Day- "She Says"
Okay so the beginning of the song is about waking up, but so far my movie is really freakin' whiny.

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL
Pat McGee Band- Runaway
It could be worse i guess.

FALLING IN LOVE
The Bloodhound Gang- "Lift your head up high and blow your brains out."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA... wow. I have nothing else to say to this.

FIGHT SONG
Fiona Apple- "Fast as you can"
Okay this is kinda cool.

BREAKING UP
Sarah Mclachlan- "Terms of Endearment"
I would be with the guy who doesn't really want to be with me, but won't tell me so we wind up having a really fucked up break-up. (There's a bitter joke to be made here about my relationship senior year at la salle...)

PROM
Tori Amos- Mother
I can dig this. It's very a melancholy coming of age song... just very final. Not very happy "yay prom."

LIFE IS GOOD
Rolling Stones- Wild Horses
Umm... okay?

MENTAL BREAKDOWN
Halifax- Snow in Hollywood
The lyrics totally don't fit with a mental breakdown, but I can totally see myself going stark raving mad and breaking shit to this song.

DRIVING
Eddie From Ohio- Clear and Present Danger
I don't know.

FLASHBACK
Deana Carter- "We danced anyway"
This fits! YAY! It's actually a song about flashbacks.

GETTING BACK TOGETHER
Goo Goo Dolls- Iris
Yes I do have the sappiest music collection known to human kind.

WEDDING
Cake- Short skirt, long jacket
There's something really cool about this being the wedding song. Short white dress, long black jacket... very mod.

FINAL BATTLE
Counting Crows- A Murder of One
Nice :)

DEATH SCENE
Matt Nathanson- Sad Songs
I just love this song... and if I had to pick a song for my death scene, i think this would be nice.

FUNERAL SONG
BoDeans- Naked
Um.... I hope not.

END CREDITS
Guster- Two Points for Honesty

This was a productive way to spend my night... ha.

"You're only as loud as the noises you make."

Tonight I saw a play. I've seen a number of plays in my life. Community, high school, professional you name it... I've never had this reaction to a play before. Even my first show ever, Crazy For You, while it sparked a love of theater that exists today, it did not invoke this kind of stay up past bed time thought process that i am getting through right now.

I just saw My Children! My Africa! by Athol Fugard at the Wilma. The acting was great, but the script is what has captured my thoughts. It was a play about South Africa in 1984. It was about substandard racist education in a society that needed change. There were three characters; three opinons on how that change needed to come about. The teacher looked at education as the way for change. To teach students the language and the words they needed to create change. He makes this beautiful speech about the gift of language and oration. There's the black student who is angry and sees change occuring only by protest and force. There's the privleged white student who looks at change as happening by forming friendships and seeing things from the other perspective. She's naive and somewhat ignorant to the world around her. These characters resonated with me. Within them I saw so much of current philadelphia. The substandard education that essentially makes sure that our students will never rise to the place they can go. The teachers like myself who want to work within it because we keep the hope that education can be the great equalizer. Believing somehow that if our students learn the language of change that they can become the change they want to see. Knowing deep down that the lessons they are learning are not about them, and struggling to show them why they should know it. The naive people who don't truely understand what is going on, but know a change should occur. And in the student that believed that the substandard education and inequality could only be erased by protest and fighting I see so many of my students.

I want to bring them to see this show, I want to make them read it, to show them all the sides. To let them see and compare these students' lives to their own. I want to make the teachers i work with read it and discuss it. I want others to see the sides of an argument that people ignore in this city.

Never in the 12 years that I have been in love with the stage, and the 19 years I've been in love with the written word have I felt this... engulfed... by a play.

More after I buy the play tomorrow and read it over and over again.