Takin' some action

I couldn't make it to the LAX protest today, so at least I can do this. (They postcards are dirty looking because of our wonky printer, but I like the homemade feel it gives them.)

Reading the news during class and wanting to cry.

That is all for now.

My lame-ass attempt at wrapping up 2016

So, as has been widely discussed on the Internet (and among real people), 2016 was not such a great year, speaking generally. I agree with this assessment, the biggest downer of the year being Trump's election. I was so conflicted and upset about it that I couldn't come up with a blog post about it, even though I wanted to write one. I couldn't decide if I wanted the post to have an optimistic, sad, or angry tone. I still don't know which tone to strike when I think about Trump or talk about the future of our country with friends. So...yeah. Time will tell, I guess?

Bowie's death was the celebrity death that meant the most to me this year, although Debbie Reynolds was a close second, due to my longtime love of Singin' in the Rain.

In happier, more personal news, this year Ari and I moved to Los Angeles. This was a change I'd been pushing for since 2013! I really didn't know if I would ever be able to convince Ari to do it, but I did. We gave away 90% of our stuff (we kept no furniture) and drove cross-country from New York to Monrovia, arriving at my parents' house on Ari's birthday, August  31st. As I type this we are still in Monrovia, living with my parents, partly because it's been hard for Ari to find work as a music teacher (he wants a full-time job) and also because my bosses at USC waited till the last week of the semester to tell me whether I was hired back or not (I got hired back! Yeah!).

Four months in to California life, Ari and I are still figuring out how to live in Los Angeles, and hopefully finding our own place to live in the next month or two will help make us feel more settled. It's going to be expensive, buying all that furniture. grumble, grumble. But so far the lack of true winter weather has been wonderful, and I love being near my parents and family. Ari's parents came out for a visit a couple of weeks ago, and his brother and sister joined us at San Clemente for New Year's. A lot of our closer friends are still in NYC or in northern California, but I know Ari and I will grow more comfortable and build our own community here, with time.

Other highlights from 2016:

-Visiting Cuba! Went to Havana for 5 days with my parents and my good friend Alicia as part of a people-to-people guided tour, before Cuba totally opened its borders to U.S. travel.

-Visiting Mexico City! This was an unplanned trip that I adapted to travel by myself after a trip to Acapulco with some work friends that fell through when there were shootings in the tourist area, and I couldn't get a refund on my ticket. Leah ended up joining me for a few days, and it was a great experience overall.

-Completing a half marathon! I ran it with my friend Anja in the Marin Headlands, in northern California. Beautiful weather and REALLY difficult, hilly terrain.


Now, onto my lists of the year!

Favorite books read in 2016 (not necessarily written in 2016):

• Under the Skin, by Michel Faber
• Bring up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel
• The Color of Water, by James McBride
• Pictures at a Revolution, by Mark Harris
• Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• The Nix, by Nathan Hill
• You'll Grow Out of It, by Jessi Klein 

Favorite new music from 2016 (I made the effort to listen to some new stuff):

• Lemonade, by Beyonce. Duh. 
• Skeleton Tree, by Nick Cave
• My Woman, by Angel Olsen (Favorite musician discovery of 2016: Angel Olsen) 

Favorite 2016 movies* (loosely organized in order): 

1. Manchester by the Sea
2. Everybody Wants Some!! 
3. Moonlight
4. One More Time with Feeling
5. Certain Women
6. La La Land
7. Hell or High Water
8. Arrival

*My FAVORITE movie of the year was definitely The Lobster, which came out in the U.S. in 2016, but is technically a 2015 film, since it took so long to reach us.

Sad that the website The Toast has ended

Because it wrote awesome articles like this one: If Barack Obama Were Your Dad.

Happy 4th! First year in a while that I think I was in the States and decided NOT to view any fireworks.

We are never completely powerless

I posted the picture above on my Instagram today (drawn by the artist Sask), in response to the shooting in Orlando this morning. 

I'm not going to take the picture down, but after reflecting a little longer, I wanted to say that I do not feel completely powerless, because:

1. I have the power to keep living my life the way I want to, without being cowed by terrorists who may want me to hide in fear or change my ways of thinking/acting. 

2. I have the power to vote for politicians and support public figures who are trying to reduce gun-related violence. 

3. I can do something. I can donate money to help Orlando hospitals and people who lost loved ones. 

New favorite pin

Anyone remember these Mother's Cookies from their childhood?

In other news, I voted for Hillary today. John Hodgman did a good job of explaining his reasons--a lot of his overlap with mine. 

In other other news, I watched the season finale of Girls yesterday. This article explains some of what I feel about it. 

In other other other news, Ari and I went to see Fun Home tonight, a show I've wanted to see ever since I heard they adapted the graphic novel into a musical. I NEVER expected it could be translated so successfully! Great music. Lots of tears (from me). 

And that is all for today! 

That moment when...

...you sigh, because you realize (but are not surprised) that your wonderful students are evil conservative nincompoops. 

No, I don't really think that about my students. But it can sometimes be frustrating to find out their opinions when it comes to politics. 

We read an excerpt from a book by Jonathan Kozol about the de facto inequality that exists in public schools due to government funding. My students had to write a letter to Kozol saying whether they agree or disagree with his argument that schools in poor areas should receive more government funding than those in richer neighborhoods, in order to create true educational equality. Keep in mind, most of my students come from quite wealthy families; that's how they're able to afford tuition at NYU, a private university. 

Here are some troubling samples of what the majority (not all, thankfully!) of my students wrote: 

("Good" grammar, not good point of view!)

These students are intermediate level, so it's important for me to remember that their rationales are a bit crudely expressed. Still, it can be frustrating to have students write these kinds of things after I've done my best to explain how logical (from my point of view) Kozol's argument is. 

Maybe some of them will eventually change their mind a wee bit? 

Trying to look on the bright side

After reading about the most recent mass shooting in Oregon and a discussion in the New Yorker about the aftermath of the Charleston, NC shootings, I am pretty much ready to cry my tired eyes out this Friday afternoon. For me, gun control is really one of the most frustrating and troubling problems we are facing in this country right now. The main thought I have is: Will we EVER enact laws that start to put a real limit on the ability of Americans to buy guns?!

This article helped me to feel a little better.  It was written three years ago, in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, and in it, Adam Gopnik argues that 1. It is very easy to significantly reduce the number of gun-related deaths by simply making guns just a little harder to obtain, and 2. we, as a country, will probably enact legislation to do just that before too much time has passed.

Gopnik writes, "It's always hard to summon up political will for change, no matter how beneficial the change may obviously be. Summoning the political will to make automobiles safe was difficult; so was summoning the political will to limit and then effectively ban cigarettes from public places. At some point, we will become a gun-safe, and then a gun-sane, and finally a gun-free society. It's closer than you think."

I really, really, really hope he's right.

These emotional times

I am an emotional person. I think I inherited this trait from my mother, who sees a front page picture of basically any disaster and gets tears in her eyes. It has been an especially emotional last couple of weeks--not only for me, but for the country.

June 17, 2015: The Charleston, SC church shooting. I actually saw this news when I was taking a 10-minute break from my reading class. I literally looked at the headline on my phone, started to tear up, and then realized that the break was over and I had to start teaching again. It took me another minute to get ahold of myself. This shooting really upset me because it seemed like proof of a combination of issues that so many Americans are unwilling to face: there is still so much racism in our country, and there is still way too little gun control. How do I, as an individual, do something about fixing those two problems? The video of Obama singing Amazing Grace at Pinckney's memorial recently broke my heart again.

June 25, 2015: The Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act. I will admit, I didn't actually cry about this news. But in the days preceding the decision I was very nervous about the outcome, partly because I am enrolled in "Obamacare" myself, and partly because it just about damn time that we made insurance a little more accessible to middle class and poorer people. I am so relieved that I don't have to worry anymore about politically-motivated hindrances to the ACA.

June 26, 2015: There were several periods of tears today. First, on the subway when I checked the news on my phone on the way back from teaching my morning class. Then, when I saw everyone's joyous responses on Facebook and Instagram. So much support, from both straight and gay friends. I woke up this morning thinking how happy I was to be able to take part in this moment in American history, and looking foward to telling my children what a big deal this decision was for our generation. Hopefully, my children will view gay marriage the way that we now view interracial marriage -- as as right that is so obviously basic that it shouldn't have been an question in the first place.

So, it has been a couple weeks of emotional highs and lows. Most recently highs, thankfully, but as Buddhist philosophy holds, the only permanent thing is change. So I'll just keep on shedding my tears of sadness and joy as those changes come.

Another reason to visit Iceland

On January 31, Iceland is going to appoint the world's first openly gay head of government: Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir. She's a "former flight attendant who parlayed her experience as a union organizer into a decades-long political career."

I've long heard that Iceland is a beautiful place to visit (not least because it's a perfect spot to see the Northern Lights, a life goal of mine).

Turns out politics are another reason to check out the country!