Why You Should Carpe Your Diem

A very wise woman came into the bakery today. "The only time you'll get nothing in return for your efforts is if you don't even try." We had been discussing the lack of eligible and worthy bachelors in Maine, and how crushes seem to always crash and burn, so why bother trying? This was her response. "I tell it to my graduate students," she explained. Her point is well taken; her example is a job interview. You may not get the job, but you're no worse off than you were before and you've learned something, gained a valuable lesson from the experience. You'll interview better, or perhaps you have a better idea of what you want or don't want in a job. Or in anything, for that matter: boys, friends, hobbies, jobs, adventures of all sorts. Of course it will come to nothing if you do nothing. But if you do something and fail, at least you gave it the old college try, right?

karmic bennies?

The karmic benefit of biking home from work: you find a Visa card along the side of the road, look up its owner in the phone book, and return the card, with hopes of good karma to come.

Instead, three bizarre (although not terribly - just slightly out of the ordinary) incidents occur.

1.
Lady at bakery: Oh man, did you gain so much weight when you started working here?
Me: ...No?

(Mostly I just found this to be a bizarre question to ask someone, although we get this kind of question a lot, never quite phrased this way. I mean, do I LOOK like I gained that much weight? Let's hope not.)

2.
Well-dressed, Amish-beard-sporting French Canadian: Are your parents originally French Canadian?
Me: No, not at all.
W-D, A-B-S FC: Well your face, it looks very French Canadian.

That's one I've never heard before. I've gotten Lebanese or Syrian, Brazilian, and Greek statue, but never French Canadian. Third parties however have since confirmed that I may look somewhat French Canadian. Huh, who knew.

3.
About the same time as the French Canadian incident, a couple from somewhere in the deep south came in a ordered a few goodies. Like any good tourist, Wife was pulling out her camera and pointing it around the bakery. All well and good, until I noticed it pointed at me; "am I in this picture?" Appalled. I don't want to be emailed around to all their friends, the laughing stock of "Bob and Mary's trip up Nawth." "Smile!" I grimaced, handing the bag over as Husband smiled dutifully. I hope I ruined their silly picture.

crazier things may have happened.

[phone rings, 5:40 pm]

me: hello?
lady: oh hi, may i please speak to an adult in the house?
me: what do you mean by adult?
lady: oh, i thought you sounded...
me: i'm 21.
lady: well may i speak to whoever is in charge of buying lightbulbs?
me: they're not in right now.
lady: okay, i'll call back in the evening.

can't wait to talk to her again.

The Plan? Not Yet.

Although I have no money and no timetable, I decided it was high time to start planning my "trip," whenever and wherever it might be. Ideally it would be an epic tour of all of North Africa and the Middle East and somehow get to India. We're looking up cheap flights at work and finding some good deals, especially to Tehran. How does that sound right about now? Sign me up, I'd go in a heartbeat. So much strife! So many fantastic things to see and do and take pictures of and opportunities for being arrested for civil unrest or something...don't worry mom, I'd stay under the radar.

Ghado!

That means lunch in Somali. Definitely taking advantage of this whole multi-cultural workplace thing. I went to lunch last week with one of the caseworkers from Lewiston, a Somali woman. We went to Hamdi, the little Somali restaurant/grocery on Washington, and of course she ordered without looking at the menu and instead engaged in a lengthy discussion with the waiter (not even really a waiter, more just the guy that works there) about food, the only word of which I understood was "chicken" (although I later found out that that isn't how you say chicken in Somali, after all).

A few minutes later a plate of rice topped with peas, raisins, and some other stuff and served with a piece of chicken and several pieces of goat meat appeared in front of me, along with a banana, salad and salad dressing, hot green chili paste, and a pitcher of what we decided was watermelon juice. It was delicious - the rice was flavorful and made even better by its garnishes, the meat was flavorful and spicy and the green chili sauce made everything just painful enough to be AWESOME.

On top of it all, I learned my first Somali words! I can now say lunch, table, chair, rice, chicken, meat, banana, juice, and thank you. Hopefully my vocabulary will expand a bit in the future, but I can deal with this for now.

من زمان ما حكيت عربي

It's been a while...

I started my internship at Catholic Charities this week doing refugee resettlement work. So far it's good - really interesting, a lot to do, a little bit overwhelming. In the two day I worked so far, two Iraqi families came, and 14 more people are arriving on Monday (although I think they might be Burmese). The other intern and myself spent most of our days driving around Portland taking care of various tasks and going to the airport to greet new arrivals. The best part? We got to speak Arabic! I never thought I'd get to brush up on my skillz at PWM of all places. My goal for the summer is to make friends with an Iraqi family so they can teach me how to cook, or at least invite me for dinner or something. It's really cool to work with interpreters, especially understanding as much as I can because you totally pick up way more about the translation through language and culture. We had to go to this orientation program thing (explaining what it was for would take up way more energy than I have) and there were Sudanese, Somalis, and Iraqis, all with their own interpreters, and listening to the English and then watching the interpretation into Somali or Arabic was mind boggling. But so cool. I hope I keep getting opportunities to use my Arabic ... fingers crossed!

The Little Traitor

Last night was the closing night of the Israeli Film Festival of Greater Philadelphia (believe it or not Philly has a lot of Israelis) and since student tickets were free and it was basically on campus, naturally I went. The film was The Little Traitor, a story about a young Israeli boy who befriends a British lieutenant in 1947. The movie itself is cute - definitely worth a NetFlix. But what I found so fascinating was the way the Arab-Israeli relations were depicted. Although the scope was so limited, the boy (Proffi) and the other Israelis in the film had friendly, normal relations with their Arab neighbors. Proffi bought his groceries in the souq and spent time smoking hookah with the Arab men hanging out in the street. They spoke a mix of Hebrew and Arabic, and were seemingly united in their hatred of the British occupation. It was almost as if the film was screaming, "things would have been better had the British stayed." It made that point explicitly when Proffi and his British friend, Dunlop, (played by Alfred Molina) were discussing the British presence and the Israeli resistance. Dunlop suggested to Proffi that the British were keeping the peace in Palestine, and if they were to leave, the Arabs would take the place of the Israelis in the weaker position and would put forth their own home-grown resistance. Proffi dismissed these wise words with a passionate "but I hate the British!" Alas, what else can one expect from a sixth grader.

Dunlop's point is well taken, but then again, hindsight is always 20/20.