ten minutes to myself

one of the only things that was simpler when I was a teenager

Every morning, when I get out of bed, I feel a little like it's my first day of my senior year of high school. Again. Because for the second time in my life, I need to start thinking seriously about my future and what I'm going to do with it. This hiatus overseas isn't going to last forever, and possibly only for another six months or so, so graduation is approaching. 

When I was seventeen years old and in a similar position, I didn't know what I was doing. I impulsively dropped Chemistry 30 three days into the new school year, and discarded the thoughts that I was entertaining of going to medical school (pre-med required Biology 30, Physics 30, and Chemistry 30) and being a trauma surgeon. Med school didn't seem like much of a life.

When I was eighteen, I sat in a large lecture theatre in the Education Building at the University of Alberta, listening to my Foundations of Canadian Education 101 professor carry on about pedagogy and feminism, phonics and whole language, and felt disappointed and uninspired. By October, I'd dropped all of my education-related courses for the next semester and replaced them with introductory economics and mathematics, bent on transferring faculties as soon as I possibly could.

When I was nineteen years old, I realized that accounting was not going to be for me, despite all of the articling jobs that appeared in the Edmonton Journal week after week, endlessly. This time, I did find something to study that was both quirky and fascinating,  so I didn't have to figure out how to re-define myself again.

When I was twenty-three years old, I earned a Master's degree in that somewhat obscure little field that I'd discovered and fallen hard for when I was nineteen. I had my first "real" job about eight (very long - just ask my husband) weeks later, but it wasn't really in that field at all. I'd just acquired some skills in undergrad, like being able to make Excel do crazy things, that I could transfer. 

And then Madeline happened, and our move to St. John's, and our move to Bangkok, and our move to Saigon. It doesn't actually feel like the seven-and-a-half-years hiatus that it's been. 

But that's what it's been. I've been curious about what companies would do with me and what will be my at-least-eight-years gap. When I ask Chris if my resume would get through HR and ever land on his desk, he kind of avoids answering me. It's kind of sweet, though. When I asked my dad the same thing this summer, he kind of winced before telling me that no, applicants with my gap wouldn't even get a second glance. 

So, what to do? Unlike when I was eighteen and finally free of the dirge that was high school, I have three people counting on me now. Two of them think that the best thing that I've ever done is wrap them in soft towels after their baths and hold them in my arms until their sobs die down, but the third holds me to a higher level of accountability. Does that mean that I pay attention to the things that are turning my head, like urban planning, statistics, comparative literature, and gender studies, or does that mean that I collect a paycheque for carding the masses passing through a Costco Wholesale in Calgary because its a less painful choice for my family? And only kind of, at that?

I think about this stuff way too much for something that makes my stomache hurt and irritates my psoriasis, and I can't even pretend to myself that I'm not thinking about it. I'm stuck, though, and maybe it's the lack of forward progress that is the most frustrating thing of all.

 

overtired friday thoughts from an international school

So, I spent most of the morning watching the student body of Madeline's school parade across the stage, alphabetically by country of origin. It was their "Parade of Nations" and everyone was dressed in costumes from their home country. I was wearing Spanx under my dress, and thus was too sweaty to really focus, but I did manage to keep myself entertained for the hour with a few random thoughts:

• Yay! I got a seat close to where Madeline is sitting with the rest of the choir!
• She's singing with the choir, and gosh - this elementary school has an orchestra? The cello is nearly as big as the little kid playing it!
• The Canadian kids look fab in their RCMP costumes. Too bad they're rushing across the stage too fast for a good photo. Why isn't my child wearing her brown hat?
• Korea definitely has the prettiest national costume. Hanbok, right?
• This school has a Filipino dance crew? Oh my, they're performing to Don't Stop Believing ... (and not the verison by Journey).
• Cute! My friend's daughter is wearing a poodle skirt!
• Hmm. Maybe Sri Lanka has the prettiest national costume. The girls have feathers in their hair!
• Wait, this school has a Bollywood dance crew?
• Oh, awsome! One of the little boys from the UK dressed up at The Stig from Top Gear! #best.costume.ever
• Why is my child singing along to the orchestra playing Beethoven's Ode to Joy? It's instrumental! 
• Would bet $20 that's she's singing something she learned from Little Einteins ...
• Good. She's not singing as the orchestra plays Yesterday ... but why not? This song has actual lyrics, at least!
• Next year, the USA should all come dressed at Hippies.

 

 

peace river soundtrack

Tonight, I originally had a date with Photoshop Elements (to prepare for a date later this week with my in-progress 2011 photobook) , but it's plainly evident that I decided to cancel those plans in favour of a rendezvous with Typepad. One of the side-effects of being in a photography class is realizing just how cluttered, underexposed, and simply bad all of my previously-taken photos are, and I can't bear to look at flat photos of Hong Kong or wherever right now. 

Now, to finally get on topic, I've re-discovered what a huge crush that I have on my iPod. It's silly, but I've been playing more music around the house, and my three year-old has been singing and dancing more (to Dan Zanes and TMBG, and also to Adele and Bruno Mars), and it's twelve kinds of awesome. 

On a whim a few weeks ago, I downloaded a few tracks from iTunes that were from what I call, in all seriousness, my parents' era. With my new playlist humming away in the background as I washed yet another sink full of dishes by hand (always, always lamenting my lack of a dishwasher), I realized that I was listening to the first song that I can ever remember hearing. 

Second Hand News was part of the soundtrack on a road-trip I took with my parents sometime in the late nineteen seventies, and even though I honestly did not know the name of the song until three weeks ago, I'd never forgotten the melody.

I was either two or three years old, and we were making our way to Northern Alberta to visit my uncle. I can remember a wide bench seat, so I guess that we were riding in the red Chevy truck that my parents owned at the time (though I can't really imagine how they ever were the truck-owning sort of people). They'd thoughtfully tucked my little yellow potty seat into the space on the floor of the truck where my legs were too short to reach; the trip between Edmonton and where my uncle lived was a haul of at least eight hours, and there still probably aren't many rest-stops on the way. I spent the journey sitting the middle, tucked in-between my mom and my dad, and we were listening to Fleetwood Mac's Rumours.

Probably on eight-track. 

This explains why I am so darn smitten with that song again, right?

 

 

 

well, we Canadians do like multiculturalism

This morning, after sweating through a yoga class that I was 95% certain was going to be air-conditioned (it wasn't - gah!), making an unplanned trip to the grocery store to buy a carton of eggs, and then having to shower again (see: sweaty yoga), I found myself standing before my second-hand waffle iron. I was madly trying to churn out waffles for a preschool class of twelve. 

You see, this week my three year-old's preschool decided that it would be fun to celebrate "Internationalism". Apparently, the wee little kids talked about how their families are all from different countries, they looked at maps, and scribbled on flags. I'm not entirely sure what Sadie had to say about Canada. She's only been there for about nine weeks in total! In fact, I'm not sure that she really even understands what Canada is. But I digress ... 

Back to the waffles. Sadie's teacher asked if I could come for lunch on Friday and bring a Canadian food item to share with the class. My first thought was to make Kraft Dinner, but then I realized that every single one of my Kraft Dinner cartons in my pantry were mis-labeled as Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. I absolutely could not bring American-pedigreed mac 'n artificial-cheese to Sadie's international luncheon! My second thought was to bring in a pan of Rice Krispie squares because they're easy, delicious, and I doubted that any of her classmates or their parents would even suspect that Rice Krispie squares aren't particularly a Canadian thing, being from other parts of the world themselves. This plan was too sneaky for my dear husband's comfort level, though, and it was he who first suggested maple syrup. (Maple syrup is apparently the gold standard for culinary proof of Canadian-ness at interational schools, by the way. There isn't one my kids have attended where this Lexus of condiments hasn't been brought out by the Canadians). It wouldn't have been proper just to serve a class of preschoolers cups of maple syrup, though. I needed something for it go on, hence the waffles. 

As I ascended the steps of Sadie's little school this morning at a quarter past eleven, a plate of waffles in my hands and a heroic bottle of maple syrup (with "product of Canada" emblazoned on it's label) ensconced in a bag on my shoulder, I suddenly realized that the waffles might have been a big mistake, or at the very least, misleading. 

Aren't they the national food of Belgium?

 

 

madelinethings

It's been a long, long time since I last interviewed Madeline for a post here. I was going to do it today, but by the time I'd remembered about it, she's already been tucked into bed for the night. So, maybe I'll just substitute some little factlets about her at age 7.25 years that I find both wonderful and bizarre. 

I bought a new broom/dustpan set the other day, and though it's designated spot is in the kitchen by the utility shelves, she keeps sneaking them upstairs and sticking them in a corner of her bedroom. 

When I have my iPod out, the only song request that she makes is for "Don't You Want Me" - the slightly stalker-ish song that the Human League recorded in 1982 (though I will admit that it's the recording from the tv series Glee on my iPod; apparently, I cannot say no to Blaine Warbler). 

The other music she requests is Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, so she can turn the volume up while videos on YouTube play and then twirl around in front of the computer with her little sister.

She still wants to play dress-up and other nurturing role-playing things, but I can see her interests maturing. Suddenly, she's into scrapbooking and meditation. Meditation? Where did that come from?

She has a penchant for very modest clothes. Her below-the-knee hemlines and high collars would meet the approval of plenty of conservative-values groups. 

Madeline has a crazy amount of patience with her little sister, way more than I had when I was seven and my sister was three. And she still happily plays with the preschool toys with Sadie, whether it's the Little People or Magnatiles. They made wonderful artwork together today, even if Madeline did end up nearly cleaning out my supply of paint.

Since admonishing her that choosing french fries to go with her school lunch does not mean that she picked a vegetable, I've been hearing her say that she had potatoes as a side dish. She knows that I know that she really just had fries again, because she never eats potatoes in their natural form, yet we keep up the illusion ...

She didn't emit one ounce of jealousy a few weeks ago when her little sister was opening birthday gifts, but an inordinate number of those gifts seem to have found permanent homes in Madeline's bedroom. Go figure. She must have been silently plotting, all along.

Over the summer, I realized that the last remant of her toddler-vocabulary had vanished; Madeline's first meal of the day is breakfast and no longer bress-kissed. Sob.

A year ago, she was fussy about sounding out words for reading. Now, she zooms though chapter books like the Ivy & Bean series or the Ramona books at astonishing speeds. And today, when we were playing Monopoly Jr., she was actually playing for her ride tickets with large bills so she'd have to compute her change. This was shocking because a month ago, it appeared that having to do math calculations in her head was a physically painful ordeal. 

The Real Housewives of Ho Chi Minh City - I'll never be mistaken for one of you

Usually, when I step outside my house here, I hope that I look pretty close to poor. I don't expend a lot of energy perfecting this look, but I do it with purpose nonetheless. Also, when I write "poor",  I mean poor-for-a-foreigner-in-Vietnam, of course. 

I thought about this today after reading another discussion on Nguyen's List about how another foreigner living here in HCMC had their iPhone or camera or something stolen from out of their hands earlier this week. There was the usual out-pouring of sympathy and words of advice from my fellow ex-pats in response, but then I saw the reply that made me smile. Some guy wrote back that the best way to keep from being a target for personal theft here is to look as unremarkable and as poor as possible. Don't wear diamonds and blingy gold chains out in public, drive a beater instead of a gleaming new Vespa, leave the designer hand-bags at home, and carry a cheap-ass mobile phone. 

This has been my plan for about a year now. I don't bother dressing up beyond a pair of shorts and a t-shirt (occasionally, with a small hole or two in it), I leave the jewelry that I care about in our personal safe, load my pockets as inconspicuously as possible with the items that I'd put in a bag, if I was brave enough to carry one. I never look like I just left the salon. I leave my iPod in my van, hidden from view. Basically, I want to look like the least wealthy foreign lady walking across the parking lot to Metro. And I pretty much succeed every time.  

I no longer care what the locals think of me, walking from my daughter's school to my car with no make-up on and wet hair, as long as it's not, "Hey - easy victim!"