Finding your Big-Girl Pants: Part 1½

We’re now two weeks into classes and three weeks since Orientation started. Incase my online absence is suspiciously pointing towards two weeks of socializing and making new friends, need I remind the world of my social skills? Silly, world. Since my last post, my very optimistic sounding post, I have come face-to-face with more big-girl things. And since I like lists, here we go:

1. Leaky tap. Fill out a work order form for the apartment superintendent and hope that it gets fixed while panicking at the idea that you have just given someone permission to enter your apartment at some point, even when you are not home. *Hides laundry loonies*
2. Orange Juice. Since the local farmer’s market has been stocked with a wonderful surplus of choice in vegetables, fruit, and baked goods, I have somehow managed to avoid stepping foot in a grocery store for three weeks. The market does not, however, have orange juice. The one substance I require to function the way plants need carbon dioxide. Or humans and oxygen. You know. So I put on my big-girl pants and rode the bus to the shopping centre where I happily strolled through Loblaws, really buttoning up those big-girl pants when I had to ask for a rain check on the out-of-stock-on-sale-orange-juice. That’s what happens when you go to the grocery store after noon, people. Lesson: Wake up and get your groceries early. 
3. Laundry. I may have ironed my shirt in my last blog post, but I never actually did the whole washing machine/dryer routine. When you leave laundry for 3 weeks, and try to fit the whole dark load into one load, things do not get washed properly. I mean, of course I knew enough to separate darks and lights, and of course I did not leave a red sock in my white a-la-Rachel-Green, but I thought water in washing machines just penetrates all the clothing and soaks everything. Well, if you have three weeks of clothing, and a small washer in the laundry room of your apartment, it doesn’t. So do not try to stuff the washing machine. Also, invest in those Tide tablet things so that you don’t have to measure laundry detergent. Life gets better with those laundry tablet things.
4. Learn how to small-talk. Okay, so I’m expecting there will be another post on this at some point this year. This past week, I attended a faculty wine and cheese event, and had to endure the dreaded small talk with colleagues aka classmates, and professors aka those who assign you a grade that defines your academic progression. What did I expect? Painful, awkward, staring at the ceiling.
   What did I encounter? Slightly less painful, slightly less awkward, and I couldn’t tell you what the ceiling looked like. I received some great advice on what to wear for “business casual” before attending: “If you would TA in it, you can wear it.” Since it was a wine and cheese, and I enjoy wine but cannot tolerate alcohol well, I was that person who casually sipped and warmed my chilled white wine in my hands, which is a nice way of saying I pretended to drink it, subtly made half of my glass magically disappear, filled the half with water, and sipped my diluted now-warm chardonnay with effortless (what a lie) grace.
   What’s the point of diluting the wine? Why didn’t I just drink a non-alcoholic drink?
   There is no difference; I call it personal preference. There is absolutely no problem or judgment I expected for preferring a non-alcoholic drink. I honestly do enjoy wine, so I had no problem asking for white wine. I like the feel of wine glasses because in that superficial way, I feel more comfortable and classy with a wine glass. It all has to do with holding the wine glass itself, and just having a drink (be it alcoholic or non-alcoholic) in general so your hands have something to do, and nothing to do with what’s in the glass. If you feel confident you will be more confident. Fact. (Not proven, but you know.)
   Let’s put it this way. I once attended an alumni talk from a very successful graduate who talked about networking and socializing. Her #1 piece of advice for events? Get a drink (again, any drink, water, wine, etc.) and hold it. It makes you 90% (I made that number up) less awkward than you would be without a drink. It gives you an excuse to politely leave a conversation and “refill” or join another conversation along the way to maximize you networking. And it keeps you hydrated, since you know, socializing requires talking, which requires hydration. And I also made that last point up based on my recent experiences.

So, all that rambling basically meant: I had to take care of maintaining my apartment, I had to go to a real grocery store and do my own laundry, which takes a lot more time when you let it accumulate. I had to socialize in a professional setting and put to use the lesson I learned about professional socializing, that is, get a drink and (it doesn’t matter if it’s alcoholic or non-alcoholic), and mingle. All of which is a lot easier said than done. Which are things I am still working on. But I tried, and that’s why this post is a ½ step in the “Big-Girl Pants.” Like half a step when you’re walking. Like the running man. No, nevermind, not the running man. Just mid step.

“They’re people too.”

During one of my reading weeks in undergrad, I visited a friend who was going to school in Vancouver. I expected to come back and tell everyone I wanted to move to the West coast, since it seems like a widely accepted fact that once you go to B.C., you never want to leave. (I mean, in some ways it’s very true – just walk to the edge of the water and look at the mountains on your right and the ocean on your left. It’s simply beautiful.) What I did not expect was to come back and think about how I walked past those on the street begging for money with no home to go to and no job to support themselves.

Homelessness can be a sensitive subject – a passionate cause for some, an ignored but accepted part of society to others. Either way the topic raises potential for heated debates and I will admit I am hesitant to write this blog post, especially since I do not actively engage in the politics of or current conversations about these issues.

When you grow up in a relatively big city, it becomes a habit to walk past the homeless and beggars without sparing a second glance. In Vancouver, I responded to the greetings the same way I always have: by carrying on. My friend reprimanded me, and said “Why do you just ignore them? They’re people too.”

“They’re people too.” They’re people too.

When I was travelling in Shanghai this past summer, I self-toured the city alone. I passed an elderly homeless couple begging for money on a busy street corner, and I noticed every person passed by without a second glance. The elderly man was wrapped in a sleeping bag, with a knit hat. He appeared to be sleeping. He eerily resembled the likeness of my own grandpa, and I felt a knot in my stomach unlike the cold-hearted response I had trained myself to possess. I pulled a small amount of yuan from my purse, and handed it to the elderly lady, who kept up an on-going plea to passers-by that sounded almost chant-like. As soon as I had given her the money, I was immediately verbally harassed by a group of women standing nearby. Not understanding a single word of Chinese, except for my numbers one to ten, I stared, startled, and tried to communicate that I could not understand what they were saying. Though their tone of voices seemed to soften towards me when they realized I only spoke English, I got the sense that one woman was trying to tell me I should not have given money to the elderly couple. An argument broke out between the elderly woman and this woman from the group, which escalated to the two shouting curses (I’m guessing, since they were repeating words and throwing their arms in the air).

Weren’t the elderly couple people too? 

While trying to adjust to the new city of “Queenstown,” I walked around the main downtown area and passed a number of homeless people. Of them, one called out to me and said, “Good evening, miss.” Under the cloak of my sunglasses, I kept my eyes straight and walked by without any acknowledgement, but inside I shrunk, tried to ignore the feeling and I couldn’t deny that I felt disappointed in myself. (Think, Gus from Cinderella trying to take all his cheese cubes and fit into the tiny mouse hole unsuccessfully.) I could hide my eyes with sunglasses, but I couldn’t hide from myself.

“They’re people too.” 

In a situation where I felt relatively safe on the sidewalk in broad daylight and I knew the language and culture of the city, why didn’t I reply? Maybe I was concerned for my safety, since you read stories in the news where “things happen,” and as a single woman in a new city, not inviting conversation with anyone, be it on the street or in a store, is another habit I have developed. But where is the line between being polite and inviting conversation? Surely a smile and a nod, or a reciprocated, “Good evening,” is not an invitation, right? Part of me wants to say, “Of course not,” but another part of me, likely in my mother’s warning voice, says, “You never know.”

There is no easy answer for this type of situation from my limited experience, and although some may easily respond with no hesitation, while others see it as “no big deal,” it’s the kind of thing I feel as though I am constantly debating. Being alone in a new city has given me another perspective, but no matter the situation, I can’t forget that “they’re people too.“

A Letter to Fellow Future-Teachers, inspired by IDEAS.TED.COM’s “Teachers open up about the (mostly lousy) economics of their dream job”

As someone who constantly believes in and supports the incredibly crucial role teachers have in society, as well as being someone who has dreamt of many different career paths but always considers teaching to be the final and most fitting destination, this TED article sparked some thoughts about an issue I am not afraid to argue (I mean, although since I am not a teacher, I feel less qualified than if you were to talk to me in a few years… I hope?)… Respect and understanding for teachers. If you read the article, which is a compilation of interviews from teachers in public school systems around the world, you will quickly see a pattern: the love of learning and a lack of recognition, understanding and respect for teaching as a profession. However curated the selection of these interviews may be, the lack of financial compensation and respect from the general public are small summaries of a larger issue I have witnessed during my few years volunteering as a teacher’s assistant in both elementary and high school classrooms. It is not appalling or shocking; it is disappointing. (Making the privileged but accepted assumption that) most of the people who are making these judgements have been in school and therefore have had teachers, I must consider that many opinions could have been formed on the experience of “bad teachers” or teachers who seemed not to care about their students, or perhaps students who did not have positive school experiences… Which leads me to the next topic about which I also have strong opinions. 

As a recent undergraduate graduate, my fellow classmates from high school and university are all headed in different paths: teacher’s college, the working world, more undergraduate courses, professional programs, college, graduate school, the list goes on. What most surprised me were the Facebook posts of those who I did not expect to teach who were headed to teacher’s college this fall. (This, however, is merely my reaction to students whom I did not know well, and so, I cannot trust my fleeting high school memories of these now future-teachers.) At first, I was quick to assume someone wanted to attend teacher’s college, simply because he or she did not, for instance, get into medical school. I shuddered at the idea that teacher’s college suddenly became his or her fallback option and not a dream career path, until I kicked myself and realized that one of my greatest mentors, and also a brilliant teacher I have seen in action in the classroom, also never considered teaching as a career until the opportunity presented itself. 

The topic of respecting and recognizing the importance of the teaching profession has the potential to raise so many issues: global, political, economical, social… But since I am no expert in any of these areas, I would rather leave that to someone who did not just learn what “fiscal year” means in the last… fiscal year…

Instead, I want to end my blog post on something a little unconventional (I mean, as conventional as you can get with a total of two blog posts, and three after this one). I have come across articles and blog posts and Facebook posts, and tweets addressed to students, parents, fellow teachers, members of the community… But this one I want to address to future -teachers: 

Dear future-teachers, be it in the near future, far future, or currently on the supply list or short-term contracts: 

Respect and recognition for teachers is a battle that has come forefront to the news in light of the provincial lack of contracts and job security. This TED article enlightens readers to the battle for respect and recognition on a global level, that reaches beyond our local schools. Teaching may have been your final destination since you were young, or it may have been a new option because of the way the big man upstairs worked things out, but either way a B.Ed is in your future. While students and parents tend to find creative ways to show their gratitude to their teachers, or communities support teachers during picket lines or other ways, I do believe that showing support as a future-teacher is by respecting the profession you have chosen. I picture this, in an ideal world, as teachers teaching because they love to learn and they love to teach, and teachers who choose not to teach because they feel called to commit their time elsewhere. I do not mean for this to sound “preachy,” ignorant, or have negative connotations. But as a student, it is downright disappointing to see teachers bashed in the media (although I am starting to see a lot more support lately). If teachers want respect and recognition from future generations, then maybe future-teachers should respect their profession first.

Sincerely, 

A fellow student and future-teacher.