About four years ago, I decided I wanted to write a novel. I honestly can’t remember where the original idea came from and why I thought it was a good one. Since English isn’t my first language, I decided that my first step should be to perfect my grammar. I scoured the web sites and the bookstores. I read everything I could. I took notes.
It appears good grammar doesn’t make you a good writer.
I moved on to the writing books. I researched what people recommended. You name it, I read it. From the cheesy, encouraging to the step-by-step, practical. I spent my free minutes devouring the books, trying to motivate myself. I read so much that I had no time to write.
It appears reading books on writing doesn’t make you a good writer, either.
I then joined a few online writing groups. I signed up for some of the classes. I wrote my first paragraph. I posted it online and waited anxiously for other people’s feedback. I reread my paragraph hundreds of times. I refreshed the screen at least ten times a minute. I analyzed the reviews. If they said good words, I figured they must be unqualified to judge fiction. If the words were harsher, I was convinced those people were the people to trust.
Somehow, self-deprecation didn’t work, either.
I chose a few of my closest, most productive, most determined writing buddies and we started a small novel-writing team. I was scheduled to be in Japan for work and I had my nights and weekends to myself. If all this free time didn’t do it, nothing would. We each followed the same steps and promised to post about a chapter a week. It started with good intentions. Out of the six of us, only two people actually finished their novel in those six months.
Time wasn’t the problem.
Defeated, I signed up for a real-life course at NYU. I also decided to start fresh and worked on my second novel during the course. If my first one never got completed, that was okay. That one was not good anyhow. The course was three months long and I wrote what I had to for each assignment. Not a word more, not a word less. In reading my writing, my teacher didn’t cry out “Wow, where have you been all these years?” but she also wouldn’t tell me how much I sucked so I’d be put out of my misery.
The published teacher or the “real” writing class didn’t do the trick.
So I stopped writing. I put the novels aside. I didn’t have time. I just wasn’t good at writing and that was that. It was pointless to pursue something that just wasn’t meant to be. I put it out of my mind.
Or so I thought.
Two days after I quit, I woke up with thoughts of my third novel. An idea that had come to me whilst I was writing the second one. I dreamt about the new book three days in a row. I went back to my old writing and realized I’d written over 40,000 words on my first novel and at least half of that on my second one. Neither of them are enough for a novel and most of the writing does truly suck. But it all comes down to one fact: I want to do it. I like to write and it makes me happy. So I needed to find a way to keep writing fiction. And two days ago it hit me: Maybe I could stop thinking that I sucked and actually sit and write everyday. Maybe the little voice in my head was doing more damage than all the bad critics in the world. Maybe it didn’t matter how bad I was as long as I did write and had a good time.
Just maybe.
He used to be my teacher.
When I was seventeen, I asked a friend of a friend of my best friend to give me lessons in Italian. I’d always wanted to learn and when I met the guy and found out that he taught Italian professionally, I figured it must be fate.
I convinced him to come to my house every Sunday and promised to pay in return. We started out as barely acquaintances but ended up friends. He actually became one of my favorite people to spend time with. As it happens with people who leave the country and live elsewhere, we lost touch completely. I thought about him over the years and even asked around but I couldn’t get a straight answer and life interfered.
Until last week.
As I’m going through my emails, I hit d to delete a series of twenty spam messages. Something makes me go back and open this one email with an Italian subject. In the last three years that karenika has been around, a few people have sent me emails in Italian so I figure maybe the email isn’t spam. And, indeed, it isn’t.
It’s my teacher from eleven years ago. It’s my friend. It turns out he went to the same school as my mother and they run into each other at a reunion and my mom recognizes him and walks up to him to ask him if he knew someone named Karen.
Small world, eh?
So he writes me an email and I am ecstatic. Since I am lazy and have a hundred unanswered emails, I take two days to write back and then anxiously wait for his reply. It doesn’t come for about two days and the whole time I’m thinking that maybe I was too overbearing. Maybe I expressed too much excitement over finding my old friend. Maybe he read something in my site and thinks I’m insane. Maybe I said something that he interpreted as rude. Maybe he changed his mind about reacquainting.
Today, I finally get an email from him and his first sentence is, “And you replied. I was worried you’d say, where the fuck did this guy come from?”
I smile. I giggle. I laugh.
Paranoia must live in all of us.
My mother in law testified before the senate in DC yesterday. Thanks to my brother in law, I convinced my lovely husband to take the day off, hop in a car and drive to DC for the day.
My last trip to DC was on my birthday a few years ago. We spent a weekend in the very warm city and visited the memorials and parks. At the time, I had a fever of 100 and some so most of what I remember from the two days isn’t very pleasant. I remember people being slow and taking literally minutes to answer a simple question or getting a simple item from a store. I came home, all frustrated and thankful that I lived in New York City. I belonged in the city. I am one of those people who get in a city cab and ask the cabbie to please drive faster. Many friends have tried to talk up the benefits of Washington DC since that trip, but I’ll admit I was close-minded and kept insisting it wasn’t a place I could ever inhabit.
My husband and I drove up after his workday on Tuesday and, despite what people had said, made it to DC in about three and a half hours. We found and checked into our fancy hotel just miles from the Capitol and the White House. My mother in law was putting the finishing touches on her speech. While eating the room service, she explained the crux of the legislation that she was testifying about. We talked about how laws are made and how long it takes from inception to a fully approved state. As someone who has never taken any politics or government courses and pretty clueless on the subject matter in general, I found the conversation fascinating. I was amazed that with all the necessary approvals, any work got accomplished at all.
The next morning, we went to the hearing, which turned out to be pretty popular. The two of us and my brother in law were lucky enough to get reserved seating. All in all, ten different senators showed up for the hearing and at parts the discussion got very heated. I found the entire scene fascinating and felt patriotic (even though I am still quite a few years away from qualifying for citizenship). I was mostly fascinated about how accessible all these discussions were and how an ordinary person could simply walk in , given they showed up early enough to get a seat.
After the testimonies and lunch, the two of us walked over to the Supreme Court building where we had a quick and very interesting lecture on the history of the Supreme Court and how the hearings work. Two interesting tidbits I learned: you don’t have to be a lawyer to become a supreme court judge and the judges work half a year, half a month, half a day. The intern who gave the tour explained that the public could come in and see any trial, given they showed up early enough and were willing to wait in line.
To finish our tour, we went back to the Capitol and got passes from our senator so we could enter the Senate Chambers. When we walked into the chambers, a senator was talking about a specific procedure for abortion, which made the papers today. The first thought that went through my mind, as I sat in the room was that if I lived in DC and was unemployed, I could come here and listen all day long.
I’m not sure what excited me so much about the experience of sitting in the hearing and in the chamber. I guess I liked that I saw history being made, first hand. I know CSPAN airs these all day long and even in Turkey we can watch the Parliament on TV, but I’d never actually been in the room where the events occurred. I’m not even sure I can in Turkey. I find it really incredible that I can in the US.
I’m not sure my overall opinions on DC have changed but I certainly saw a different side of the city this time. At least now I have an idea of what I could do with my free time if we did move there.
Today’s the two-week mark since I’ve quit.
With the exception of really good friends and my husband, who know better, people have been asking me what I plan to do next. Are you going back to computers? Wall Street? Are you really planning to move? Where? Once we open the topic, questions don’t end.
Of all the things I got back in my life in the last two weeks, two matter the most: time with people I love and time to read. I’ve spent several multi-hour conversations with friends in other cities and have had the privilege of spending face-to-face time with friends whom I hadn’t seen since last May. I’ve also been reading incessantly. I read four books since I’ve quit and am in the process of reading three more. Last week, I devoured {the} Hours in a day and remembered why I need reading in my life.
Something I didn’t foresee was how quickly the days would pass even when I don’t have a job to swallow three quarters of my day. It seems I have something to do every single day. Not only that but I keep an overgrowing list of things to-do that I add to more often than I erase from. At this rate, I may not be free until the end of the summer.
My email account, even though I spent several hours cleaning it last week, still has 55 unanswered emails. My computer is full of pictures I have been meaning to post. Book excerpts I mean to write. Phone calls I mean to make.
An novel idea I’ve had for three years has come back to haunt me. I promised a friend that I’d help code his site. I want to learn Python. I’m thinking of installing Linux on my laptop so I can play with it. I want to take more pictures, especially of New York, which I plan to leave real soon. I want to visit all the City’s museums; especially its quirky ones. I want to go to the opera, to see plays. I want to go to see the movies that only New York’s theaters show.
Maybe I’m filling up my time because I don’t know the answer to “What’s Next?” or maybe I’m not ready to think about it because I have so many other things I want to do. I don’t know if it’s the chicken or the egg.
I do know that the question is at the back of my mind. I do know that I don’t want to settle. I know that I was passionate about the cause of TFA, regardless of how it all turned out. I know that I want to feel that passion for the next move I make. That I want to live my life passionately. That I want the kind of job I’d be proud and thrilled to have. I know that it may not be possible. But maybe it is. I’m certainly going to try.
I also know that I’m not ready to answer the question just yet.
I’ve been meaning to write for quite some time.
Putting it off is so much easier than doing it. Partly because putting it off means I don’t have to start taking responsibility for my life, the one I will be creating from scratch, just yet. Partly because I’m still enjoying the honeymoon period. Partly because I’m scared to face the guilt that I’m sure will come but has refused to appear so far. Partly because I’m still getting used to feeling this way and I am worried it might not last if I start talking about it. Partly because I’ve decided to live my life again.
The fact is, I enjoy my site. I’ve always enjoyed writing here and having a place where I can publicly dump my thoughts. I know that writing things here puts them in the world forever and, as opposed to old diaries, I won’t necessarily be able to tear these pages.
But I like the truth in that. I like that I can’t go back and act like something never happened. I like that I can’t deny I felt a certain way at a certain time. That something wasn’t a choice when it was.
I don’t believe in regret. Never have. I’ve only had one event in my life that I consistently regretted for fifteen years and I just let go of it a week ago. (It felt so good!) This is not to say that I haven’t been sad or frustrated by the choices I made. It’s just that I always thought about my choices at length and never made them haphazardly. Thus, I was always secure in the knowledge that my steps were the best ones to take for my state of mind at that time. Regretting something after the fact is useless especially since there’s almost no way to change it. Having these pages stored in a digital format where anyone can dig them up at anytime forces me to call myself on my tendencies to slip into the world of denial. It stops me from saying “Oh, I never wanted to do that any way.” It gives others the proof to say, “Bullshit.”
I quit my job. Exactly a week ago.
I quit the job that I believed in with all my heart. The job I didn’t want to admit hating. The job that wasn’t right for me from the very beginning. The job that I wasn’t really even trying to do well. I still believe in the message. I am still amazed by the people who do it every day, despite its difficulties. I respect their choices and their ability.
Most amazingly, I didn’t quit it for something better. I didn’t quit it for more money. I didn’t quit it for more flexible time. I didn’t quit it because it was boring. I didn’t quit it because I plan to get pregnant.
I simply quit for me.
Okay, just so you can see the manic depressiveness of my job, I had a great day today. Not with the class mind you, but with one of my students after school. It’s a long story and it’s already midnight so I am going to go to bed but the choice to quit, for me, is nor here yet. It comes and goes. One moment, I am completely prepared to quit and the next I want to be there for the kids. I love the kids. More coming really soon, I promise.
To those of you who’ve been commenting, I just want you to know that I am reading them and they mean the world to me and they are affecting my day to day life and my moment to moment thoughts. I will respond to the comments and I am so glad you are taking the time to give me your thoughts, opinions, and empathy. Thank you. 🙂
I must admit I am the type of person who thinks a million times before she makes a decision. I’ll go to a store, try the clothing on literally four times and then walk out. Think about it for a week, go back and try it on and then think about it for another week and then I won’t buy it. There are lots of reasons for that nonsense but one of them is that I like to be sure. Whatever that means.
That is not to say I haven’t made any instant decisions in my life. Actually most of the really big ones seem to have been made in a moment. But I tend to chew on it for way too long before I let it go.
I could look at that as insane and insecure or I could look at it as persistent and analytical and committed. Cause when it comes to this job, the only reason I haven’t walked away is because I am committed. So the not-making-decisions-lightly can also mean I don’t walk away.
What is comes down to, however, is that I’ve been eating my brain out for over a month now trying to find out what the right thing to do is. Obviosuly, there is no right thing. But there’s something that I can live with. And it’s not this. This state of being is a nightmare. It’s driving me insane and I need it to go away.
I guess the key is figuring out how.
Wow, talk about a bad day! I am amazed at the optimism that seems to surround me all weekend when I plan my lessons and just assume they will work. And then I get up and go to school and the kids show up and then reality hits me. I am amazed at the kindness I want to give my students but yet the meanness I spew out in the middle of frustration and resentment. I am mostly amazed at how much I really suck at this. Just didn’t think it was possible to be this bad.
And then there’s this CNN article which I could say so much about but I won’t because my bed time has come and gone.
My friend, Ed, sent me this link about someone else’s teaching experience and I must tell you that while my situation is quite a bit better and I have what I consider to be a much more supportive principal and other really helpful people in my school, I have had days where my students were really acting up in ways I never thought possible. And, man, am I in over my head!
It’s been a long time. When I decided to do this job, I knew that I would no longer realistically be able to write this site every single day like I used to be able to. While I had absolutely no idea of the insanity that my life would become, I did know that time would become a more precious commodity than it had been in the last two years when I was working part time.
The sad thing is, now I need to journal more than ever. This site used to be a way I could think about my thoughts. It was a way I got to reflect regularly. I kept diaries for over ten years as a child but for some reason, I haven’t been able to get into it the way I really want to. If there’s one thing I know about this teaching experience, it’s that I’m going to want to remember my thoughts and feelings as I experience this. While I am confident that some things are best forgotten, I don’t want to rely on my shaken memory of these two years. I’m not going to want to forget this.
On a more practical note, I find that reflecting gives me a way to improve and perfect my thoughts on a subject. While it might lead me down the path of wallowing on what I could have done and what I should have done, that’s something I’m simply going to learn to get over because without quality reflection time, my life just becomes about making through each day, which is not an efficient way to make an impact.
So I am not really sure how to make this work. As of next week, I have class on Wednesdays, Thursdays until after 9:30pm. I also will most likely be teaching after school on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays and Saturdays. All this tightens my already crammed schedule. However, I need to make time for this. So any ideas on how I can make that happen?
The good news is that I’ve found a way to make peace with doing this job and not hating my life and myself. The bad news is that I don’t feel like I’m necessarily a better teacher. I just show up to work everyday and don’t want to kill myself at the end of the day. (Though, one of my students wrote the nicest thing on his math journal today, “Dear Ms.— When I was in 4th grade and down. Math was really boring. Now you make it fun to learn.” Isn’t that nice?)
Most importantly, I still need to find a way to get them to shut the fuck up. Any advice? 🙂
Time for change: back to my origins
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projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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