Something to Red Bean...

She bounds over to me on a daily basis, her face lights up as she says, "Haaaather." She is usually the first to make me smile on any given day. Her name is Jing and she came to Cornell from China at the beginning of the semester. Jing and I often share rides to and from school activities where we chat and conduct grammar lessons. While her English improves each week, we often giggle like the school girls we are over our miscommunications--her confusion over why I would take a yogurt class (it was yoga), her query as to what a condom was...in the middle of a food chem lecture (if I had it to do over, let's just say I'd omit the hand motions), our perpetual bewilderment regarding the use of sounds to convey "yes" and "no" (who knew that the Chinese "nnnnn," while sounding much like a negative, actually equates to the English "uh-huh?")

One night in September I was driving her home and feeling particularly sorry for myself. I was droning on about my unhappiness and all that I missed back home. I asked her what she missed about her home in China and she said, "nothing." I thought maybe the language barrier had gotten the best of our conversation once again, but then she said something that made me realize she had understood perfectly. She said, "you should be thankful that you have something to miss." Wow.

This week during one of our "how do you say" lessons, I asked her how to say "red bean" in Chinese. She told me, I repeated. It sounded exactly like what she said, but she told me no, so I repeated again and again until I got her approval. Next she told me that "red bean means when you miss somebody." I didn't quite understand, so I said, "you mean you tell your boyfriend that you 'red bean' him." She laughed and said that no, it was more like a symbol that expressed the sentiment of missing someone (okay, so those are my words, not hers, but we worked it out!). Like if you give someone a red bean confection, it means you miss him. Cool.

During my days at Cornell, distinguished professors have taught me about rheology, water activity, Reynolds number, and the benefits of flavanols. My amazing friend, Jing, however, has taught me a more important lesson--be thankful that you have something to miss. I will "red bean" her when I move back to Philly. Tomorrow I will ask if there is a Chinese symbol to express gratitude. Until then, I will simply say: Thank you, Jing.

Say My Name, Say My Name...

So, here's the story that won me tix to see my faaaaavorite band in a studio session last year. My favorite band, since you're wondering, is Dashboard Confessional. And, no, I'm not 13. And, yes, it's difficult to find friends who will attend their concerts with me. (Thanks, Kitty.) On with the story...

I'm a high school chemistry teacher and, while I can't imagine doing anything else, there are days that I think I'll go crazy if I hear the words, "Miss Erney" one more time. More accurately, it's usually a nice, strident string of "mussurny, mussurny, mussurny" that makes me want to scream. It is at those times that I change the rules on my students--if they want me to respond to them, they are no longer to refer to me as "Miss Erney." (And, no, they don't get to choose what else they'd like to call me...) I write my new name on the board--Mrs. Carrabba--and I smile as I wait for someone to figure out my schtick. After the inevitable guesses of, "you really like the Italian chain restaurant?" one excited 15 year old girl usually figures it out. She agrees with me, of course: Chris Carrabba IS dreamy. We simultaneously sigh.

If you didn't know that Chris Carrabba is the lead singer of Dashboard Confessional, that's okay. It just means that 1) you're not 14 and 2) less competition for me =)

So that's been my life for the last 10 years. Now it's this year. About a month into my return-to-college, I realized that I really look forward to Thursdays. That's odd since it's my longest day and I have lots of work due each week for my food chem lab. I finally recognized why it's my favorite day--my lab partner says my name. I don't really get to hear "Heather" much anymore. Many of my profs don't know my name, the students are friendly enough, but don't get too buddy-buddy with the "mom-like" student, and I spend a lot of time in my apartment, where spiders abound, but rarely say my name. My lab partner, though, addresses me as "Heather" during labs. When I realized this, tears came to my eyes (yes, I know that crying during class may not help attract would-be friends...). It makes me sad that people don't know who I am. It also makes me question whether I really know who I am. I went from a city to the country, from friends to strangers, from a teacher to student, from hearing my name repeated ad nauseum to forgetting that I had a name, from happiness to...

Anyway, to all the Harriton kids, I vow to never again complain about hearing "Miss Erney" too often! Unless Chris Carrabba is reading this and has a proposal in mind. =)

PS Thanks, Allen.

As Vision Changes, So Does Perspective

In the last entry, I joked about my pursuit of the perfect backpack. Well, I made it back to Philly last weekend and was contemplating the wall-o-backpacks at EMS. I was excited by the external water bottle holders that would allow for dry lab notebooks and the 20% student discount WITH student ID. Which color should I get? I selected green, but it appeared more gray...That's because my second bout of optic neuritis was commencing...while buying a backpack... so that the 31-year-old student could (kind of) fit in. Geez!

Optic neuritis is a swelling of the optic nerve, caused by Multiple Sclerosis. It was my initial symptom of MS and what prompted my diagnosis eight years ago. Within a few hours, I was in the hospital so that I could get the IV meds I needed ASAP. All this during my second week of school. Ugh.

A million things ran through my mind as I came to terms with what was happening, not the least of which was, "what will my professors think of me?" Will they think I'm a slacker? What if I can't drive back to Ithaca or see to do my homework? Will they fail me? Should I drop out of school right now? I was again reminded of my own students' struggles and their emails to me explaining their extenuating circumstances. I'd wondered if I'd been too harsh with them, too "that's the way the cookie crumbles, you should have planned better." My apologies if that was the case.

At some point, I got a hold of myself and focused on the priorities. #1 was to get the medicine so that I could get physically better within a week or so. #2 was to calm down so that I could get emotionally better within the same time period. #3 was to focus on school and how I going to complete my work. (It was a team effort, by the way. My mom read dough rheology articles aloud to me, the nurses overlooked my laptop, calculator, notebooks, and textbooks as they came in to take my vital signs, and Ms. Demaray scanned my Sensory homework. Thanks!)

After listing priorities, I thought about my perspective. I couldn't see very well, yet in some ways MS helps me to see more clearly than I ever did when I was healthy. And these are things from last weekend that I will likely remember waaaay after my year of grad school has concluded: my goddaughter running up and hugging me as I'm bawling, having a hand to hold during IV insertion, eating non-vegan blueberry pancakes from Perkins in a hospital bed, my parents entering the room and not looking torn-up because, really, we're getting the hang of this MS thing.

Heavy stuff. And now, some not-so-heavy stuff...

Top 5 reasons to love your lab partner:

5. He gets your safety glasses out for you.

4. When you ask, "can I tag along with you to the food science club meeting," not only does he say, "yes," but he makes a point to stand next to you during it. (Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the first meeting of the food science club was standing room only!)

3. After you've messed up, like, 6 times and stalled the lab experiment, he finally screws up and causes a slight delay.

2. He patiently teaches you how to use the micropipet because these convenient technologies were not present in college chem labs back in the 90's.

1. He could have been your student, but he's classy enough not to verbalize this.

A Chemistry Teacher Returns to Studenthood...

I recall one of my writing assignments from Honors English my freshman year of undergrad. We were given the task to "define empathy." If only I could get that same assignment fourteen years later, I'd ace it! I've returned to college after teaching for ten years. I am a student who thinks like a teacher. What does this mean? It means I hear a senior undergrad complain to our lab instructor, "there's too much work in here for a 2 credit class." I immediately think, "stop whining," yet I totally agree with her. It means that I do school work from the time I get home from class (5 pm) until the time I go to bed (~1 am), but I don't drink beer. (Incidentally, presently this suits me just fine, as I have no friends in Ithaca.) It means that, after spending hours on a lab write-up and not being in the mood to edit it, I make myself do it because I'd expect that of my own students. In a larger way than I thought, I feel like this year will be dedicated to them, my former students--the ones who love me (yes, there are a few) and the ones who hate me (I think there are a few more of those...). I've held them to a high standard and they've risen. Here's to holding myself to that same standard. I hope I rise, too.

Some funny moments from my first week:

• A sophomore asked me what year I was. I was so caught off guard that instead of saying, "I'm a grad student," I blurted out, "I'm 31 and have taught high school for the past 10 years." She replied, "wow, you don't look it." After hugging her in my mind many times over, I realized it was probably the adult acne that had thrown her.
• Apparently, Jansport backpacks are no longer "all the rage" as they were back in '96. (Though I fully endorse the brand, as the original from my freshman year is still kickin'.) Now there are lots of REIs and some expensive-looking brand with a fancy label (Swiss Army, perhaps?). I'll confirm the brand next week, as I'm going to scour the stores this weekend until I find one to call my own. I'm not kidding. I want to fit in. If I wore Mom jeans, I'd be swapping those out, too. So far, though, I think I'm holding my own fashion-wise...once I set the backpack down, that is.
• When I explained that I had been out of school for 10 years to a fellow grad student who'd recently arrived from China, she smiled and said, "Oh, are you married?" Oh, wait, wrong list, that's not funny :/

So, here's to putting myself in my students' shoes and making this a terrific school year. I heart Harriton. Soon, I hope to be able to heart Cornell. I'll let you know how it goes after I get my new backpack :)

Cheers,
Heather (formerly known as Miss Erney)