Two years ago if you had asked me how I felt about outsourcing I would have told you exactly what was in my head: it sucks, it shouldn't happen, and American jobs should stay in the hands of Americans. I, like most Americans, felt anger and betrayal when I thought of the American coporations eliminating hard-earned American jobs and handing them to foreign coporations and individuals who would do the job for less. I felt the fear when I thought on the direction of our country, of the future of my family, whether I would be able to go to college, if I should even bother.
Thankfully, my mother's job was never eliminated and it likely never will be. Many of her friends, however, found themselves jobless, replaced by a new coporation headquartered in India. The new company shipped many of their offshore employees onshore, to work side by side with the company that has employed my mother for the last... nearing thirty five years now. No one was pleased, and many of the people my mother has worked with for years showed their true colours when young people with a different complexion, a different accent, and a different background, walked through the revolving doors of their office building. Some searched for different employment, others ignored the newcomers, and others were truly ugly and hateful human beings, welcoming these young people to this strange new country with dirty looks, sneers, inordinate workloads and never a helping hand.
When my mother found Naveen and Sara, I was just getting ready to leave for college. They would come over to the house and cook with my mother, they taught her how to cook Indian food (and how to cook it well!), they watched movies with her, gave her books to read. They went shopping with her, asked her to bring them to their apartments when it was too rainy to take the bus, went for walks with her by the river in the spring and summer, held her arm when she needed help going up a curb, laughed at her jokes, talked to her when she was lonely. They were always there for her, even though America had been so cruel to them, so unwelcoming. Naveen's mother and father call my mother his "auntie," and she has a place beside his family at his wedding in India (as soon as they decide who his bride is... a story for another day). Sara's boyfriend (also a story for another day) in Texas sent my mother a coupon for a huge turkey over Thanksgiving, and emailed my mother, Naveen and I his gratitude for taking care of Sara when he couldn't be here for her. Sara and Naveen are like siblings to me. They are far from home and they don't have any family here to hug them when they are scared, to tell them jokes, to reassure them when work has been unbearable.
My view on outsourcing changed drastically as I got to know Sara and Naveen. They are people too, just here trying to do their jobs. They were sent here by their employers, and if they had refused they would have been without employment. They don't want to raise their families in India, they want to stay here and live and work and just live. They love this country, despite all of the trials her people put them through.
We took Naveen with us to Washington over Thanksgiving. I sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with him, looking out over the reflecting pool, the WWII Memorial, and the Capital Building, and told him about a country ripped in two not too long ago by a disagreement over the value of a man. I told him about a nation that would send its babies off the war, to kill more babies in a country no one had ever even heard of, as I ran my fingers over the names of the friends of my parents on the Vietnam Wall. We stood in front of the White House and discussed the irony of the homeless people not 1,000 feet away from the most powerful man in the free world. I told him of the millions of people who died in a war much too recent, for no reason other than their faiths, their backgrounds, the people they loved. He had never even heard of the Holocaust, he didn't know that slaves were used in this country based solely on the colour of their skin, he didn't know about our Revolutionary War. He knew nothing about our country, or about the history of Western Civilization at all, but he is learning, and he is eager to learn.
If he is going to live in this country, and raise a family here, he needs to know about the United States and at least the important events in our history.
Sara went back to India over the summer and was transfered to work in Texas so she could live with her boyfriend.
We just found out last night that Naveen's visa will not be renewed, and he has a week to leave the country.
I held my mother in the kitchen while she wept, while she repeated "I'm loosing all three of you" over and over, sobbing. It's hard to not be steaming mad when you have to hold your mother in your arms because you're afraid she'll topple over from a broken heart. It's hard to not want someone to pay, it's hard to not want to be able to make everything right, so so badly. To be able to tell her that he can stay, that he can be her adopted son, as he has become, that he will still be here when I go back, that his life will be all right and nothing will be scary anymore.
But I can't tell her that. INS isn't renewing visas these days because of the outcry against outsourcing, from people like the person I was two years ago. Naveen is a hard worker, who deserves a chance to make his life better, just like my ancestors got when they left the slums of Dublin and the pastures of Poland and boarded ships bound for a strange land they had heard whispers of, promises of a better future for their babies and themselves. He is a hard worker, and a good man, and he deserves to be able to stay in this country, if only for as long as he is needed on shore. His employers are fighting to keep him on shore, because there is work only he can do.
I'm praying he stays on shore, if only for a little while longer, just long enough for them to figure out what we can do to keep him here indefinitely. I love Naveen because my mother loves him like a son, and anyone who my mother loves like a son or a daughter is a brother or a sister to me. The colour of his skin doesn't matter, his accent doesn't matter, his birth doesn't matter. He is my brother, he is my friend. We share this world, we share this country, we share this state, we share this woman who loves us and cares about us. I will do anything and everything to make sure he stays here, and lives a long and happy life in this country.
Sometimes the people of this country infuriate me. If you can see where I am coming from, and I hope you can, please pray that Naveen's visa is extended and he isn't put on the next flight to India from JFK. And if that can't happen, please pray that I can figure out how to heal my mother's breaking heart.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Running
I don't like to run very much (which makes me wonder why I love lacrosse so much, you never stop running in that sport), but I like to work out, ride the bike for half an hour, do the rowing machine, leg presses and lifting. I get very stressed out when I'm home because I don't have a gym readily accessible, I have nowhere to just escape to. Sure I escape in my music, but it's so much easier to be physically active and release your energy that way than to release it through music. (I'm on a sort of... creative hiatus, so to speak. It hurts to be creative, more than helps. I have been in a funk when it comes to music ever since George died almost two years ago. Just something not right about the feel of the bow on those strings or the low cries of the violin these days). So I run up and down the stairs, do leg lifts and crunches and push ups until I can't do any more. The gym is a place where I can escape for an hour or so a day at school. There's no school work, no distractions, just sweat and my ipod and breathing in and out.
I feel like I've been running a lot lately, and I'm pretty exhausted from it all. I'm running from how afraid I am of the future, of even what tomorrow will bring. I had this, this really weird epiphany. I'm so close to the future that I've always wanted. Maybe not so close, but close none the less. Closer than I was a year ago, two years ago, a decade ago. I didn't even know where I was going with my life a year ago, and I might not still, but I have a better idea now and I'm so on the right track and I'm going to get there and it just feels so... scary. I'm scared because it's all going to happen, it has to happen and I believe in it.
I run from responsibility a lot, as much as I might like to deny that, I do. Sure, I take responsibility for my actions, but if I don't have to act, I won't. There has never been a driving force in my life before telling me that I have to do something or else my dreams won't come true (never might be too strong of a word there, after all there is always that driving force telling you to inhale and exhale or else your dreams will certainly not come true).
It's not just running from responsibility. It's running to keep going, to get to the next square. Going through the motions and then some, only resting when fatigue sets in and then running more. It gets exhausting after a while. Hours of classes, hours of work and papers, meals only when readily available and next to free, tea and cheap wine, lacrosse, work for five or six hours every week, volunteering when they need me, running clubs, giving giving giving and never receiving. It's why I love Hillary so much, I think, because finally after all these years of giving to my education, to my friends, to my family, to work and music and sports and life in general, there is another human being out there who doesn't need to be in my life, but who chooses to be there, and who loves me and wants my happiness and has a vested interest in my being sane at the end of each day. I don't feel like I have to run when I'm with her, I feel safe from the past, present and future. The grade police aren't going to get me, my coach isn't going to hunt me down and make me run suicides, I won't have to play my violin in a concert that truly doesn't need me, I don't need to do anything or be anyone who I'm not. I can just be me.
The future is such a scary place sometimes. But I'm so looking forward to getting there, and being able to stop running from all the things that have forced me on this treadmill all my life. Someday, I'm going to graduate from college, go to graduate school, get my masters in clinical psychology, get into a doctoral program and get my PhD, and until then I am work and live and be happy and healthy and keep running because I can almost taste the sweetness of accomplishment. I'm at the edge of something big here, and some day all of my dreams are going to come true and maybe then I can finally stop running and rest.
I feel like I've been running a lot lately, and I'm pretty exhausted from it all. I'm running from how afraid I am of the future, of even what tomorrow will bring. I had this, this really weird epiphany. I'm so close to the future that I've always wanted. Maybe not so close, but close none the less. Closer than I was a year ago, two years ago, a decade ago. I didn't even know where I was going with my life a year ago, and I might not still, but I have a better idea now and I'm so on the right track and I'm going to get there and it just feels so... scary. I'm scared because it's all going to happen, it has to happen and I believe in it.
I run from responsibility a lot, as much as I might like to deny that, I do. Sure, I take responsibility for my actions, but if I don't have to act, I won't. There has never been a driving force in my life before telling me that I have to do something or else my dreams won't come true (never might be too strong of a word there, after all there is always that driving force telling you to inhale and exhale or else your dreams will certainly not come true).
It's not just running from responsibility. It's running to keep going, to get to the next square. Going through the motions and then some, only resting when fatigue sets in and then running more. It gets exhausting after a while. Hours of classes, hours of work and papers, meals only when readily available and next to free, tea and cheap wine, lacrosse, work for five or six hours every week, volunteering when they need me, running clubs, giving giving giving and never receiving. It's why I love Hillary so much, I think, because finally after all these years of giving to my education, to my friends, to my family, to work and music and sports and life in general, there is another human being out there who doesn't need to be in my life, but who chooses to be there, and who loves me and wants my happiness and has a vested interest in my being sane at the end of each day. I don't feel like I have to run when I'm with her, I feel safe from the past, present and future. The grade police aren't going to get me, my coach isn't going to hunt me down and make me run suicides, I won't have to play my violin in a concert that truly doesn't need me, I don't need to do anything or be anyone who I'm not. I can just be me.
The future is such a scary place sometimes. But I'm so looking forward to getting there, and being able to stop running from all the things that have forced me on this treadmill all my life. Someday, I'm going to graduate from college, go to graduate school, get my masters in clinical psychology, get into a doctoral program and get my PhD, and until then I am work and live and be happy and healthy and keep running because I can almost taste the sweetness of accomplishment. I'm at the edge of something big here, and some day all of my dreams are going to come true and maybe then I can finally stop running and rest.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Flagpoles Are Serious Business
I can't recall if I've blogged about the infamous flagpole incident, so I'm gonna do that right about now.
We've all seen A Christmas Story when the whimpy little boy gets dared to stick his tongue to a flagpole and the fire department has to come and Ralphie feels terrible about it for all of two minutes. For whatever reason, a lot of people still don't believe that sticking one's tongue to a very cold flagpole will result in one's tongue becoming frozen to said flagpole.
Alas, if only I were not such a skeptic and a researcher by nature, I might have been spared the agony and the shame of being that girl. You know, that girl, the one that no one wants to be.
So it was a dark and VERY cold January evening in Connecticut and we were driving around, looking for trouble. This all took place last year over winter break.
All of a sudden I got it in my head that it would be a fabulous idea to put the old flagpole myth to the test. Brilliant.
So we drove to our old elementary school, hopped out of our cars, and prepared ourselves for laughs. Not believing that it would work, I stuck my tongue to the icy flagpole with no fear. When I tried to pull away, I felt the tug of the icy metal at my tongue and my lower lip which had also become frozen to the pole. Tears began to stream down my face and I begged my friends to do something. They ran for water, which would do nothing in the below freezing temperatures. We were not close enough to run home for help, and I was in too much panic to be left alone. Finally, I braced myself, put all my muscle against the pole and ripped my tongue off the flagpole. My friends looked away with terror and I wrapped my arms around my head in excruciating pain and walked blindly back to my car.
I rested my head on my car as my heart started to calm down and stop racing wildly and my vision began to go back to normal. I didn't care about anything in the world except that my tongue was no longer an extension of the flagpole (I'm a psychology major, not a chemistry major, I had no idea that when you stick your tongue to a frozen flagpole that there is a chemical reaction). My best friend Kate came up to me and asked me if I was alright. I looked over at her and opened my mouth to speak, but when I did that no words came, only blood splattered out of my mouth. I spat into the snow and tried not to look because I can't handle the sight of blood at all. I decided we needed to get out of there, and we needed to figure out how to take care of it without involving my mother. We drove home in silence. I was driving, with the window rolled all the way down and my head sticking as far out of the window as possible so that the blood dripping from my mouth wouldn't get on my car or my clothes.
So we got back to my house and we rushed past my mother and into the basement. I think Kate went and got hot water or something while I sat and tried to keep talking to my friends. I kept saying things like "It'll be fine I think" "It's totally fine" but eventually I couldn't speak anymore because my tongue had swollen to at least 2 times its normal size. I couldn't even breathe out of my mouth.
I told my sister, who told me I was stupid, who then told my mother that I was stupid (I had told her by then, and begun rinsing my mouth with salt water), but my mother in her infinite kindness does not believe I am stupid, just that I am strange and too curious for my own good.
I couldn't eat solid food or speak (and be understood) for two weeks. I still have two scars on my tongue, and I have no feeling on the tip of my tongue, and that will likely be the way it will be for the rest of my life (since it has been almost exactly a year now since that fateful evening).
So the moral of the story is: Tongues really can get stuck fast to flagpoles, and it sucks, so don't do it!
P.S. Molly I hope you think this is accurate. I'm glad you and Natasha and Kate were there, even if none of you tried to stop me :-P
We've all seen A Christmas Story when the whimpy little boy gets dared to stick his tongue to a flagpole and the fire department has to come and Ralphie feels terrible about it for all of two minutes. For whatever reason, a lot of people still don't believe that sticking one's tongue to a very cold flagpole will result in one's tongue becoming frozen to said flagpole.
Alas, if only I were not such a skeptic and a researcher by nature, I might have been spared the agony and the shame of being that girl. You know, that girl, the one that no one wants to be.
So it was a dark and VERY cold January evening in Connecticut and we were driving around, looking for trouble. This all took place last year over winter break.
All of a sudden I got it in my head that it would be a fabulous idea to put the old flagpole myth to the test. Brilliant.
So we drove to our old elementary school, hopped out of our cars, and prepared ourselves for laughs. Not believing that it would work, I stuck my tongue to the icy flagpole with no fear. When I tried to pull away, I felt the tug of the icy metal at my tongue and my lower lip which had also become frozen to the pole. Tears began to stream down my face and I begged my friends to do something. They ran for water, which would do nothing in the below freezing temperatures. We were not close enough to run home for help, and I was in too much panic to be left alone. Finally, I braced myself, put all my muscle against the pole and ripped my tongue off the flagpole. My friends looked away with terror and I wrapped my arms around my head in excruciating pain and walked blindly back to my car.
I rested my head on my car as my heart started to calm down and stop racing wildly and my vision began to go back to normal. I didn't care about anything in the world except that my tongue was no longer an extension of the flagpole (I'm a psychology major, not a chemistry major, I had no idea that when you stick your tongue to a frozen flagpole that there is a chemical reaction). My best friend Kate came up to me and asked me if I was alright. I looked over at her and opened my mouth to speak, but when I did that no words came, only blood splattered out of my mouth. I spat into the snow and tried not to look because I can't handle the sight of blood at all. I decided we needed to get out of there, and we needed to figure out how to take care of it without involving my mother. We drove home in silence. I was driving, with the window rolled all the way down and my head sticking as far out of the window as possible so that the blood dripping from my mouth wouldn't get on my car or my clothes.
So we got back to my house and we rushed past my mother and into the basement. I think Kate went and got hot water or something while I sat and tried to keep talking to my friends. I kept saying things like "It'll be fine I think" "It's totally fine" but eventually I couldn't speak anymore because my tongue had swollen to at least 2 times its normal size. I couldn't even breathe out of my mouth.
I told my sister, who told me I was stupid, who then told my mother that I was stupid (I had told her by then, and begun rinsing my mouth with salt water), but my mother in her infinite kindness does not believe I am stupid, just that I am strange and too curious for my own good.
I couldn't eat solid food or speak (and be understood) for two weeks. I still have two scars on my tongue, and I have no feeling on the tip of my tongue, and that will likely be the way it will be for the rest of my life (since it has been almost exactly a year now since that fateful evening).
So the moral of the story is: Tongues really can get stuck fast to flagpoles, and it sucks, so don't do it!
P.S. Molly I hope you think this is accurate. I'm glad you and Natasha and Kate were there, even if none of you tried to stop me :-P
Monday, January 5, 2009
Back on Planet Earth
I feel like I dropped off the face of the Earth for a while there. My friends may or may not agree with me, that's a matter of opinion I s'pose.
Disney at Christmas is fabulous, if you ever have the chance or the desire, definitely go at that time of year. It's so beautiful, and the decorations are lovely. The only two things I regret about being in Disney for Christmas: Not being in church for Christmas eve/morning (particularly because this is my pastor's last Christmas with our church) and also the fact that none of the guests of Disney seem to comprehend the joy of the season. Everyone is still as pushy and blood thirsty as ever down in the good old Mouse's House. They'd knock you over as soon as look at you if they thought you would get on a ride even just a person before them, or get a better vantage point for the fireworks. Christmas spirit indeed, and all good Christians I'm sure. Disney brings out the worst in people, I swear, myself included. I don't mind tripping people who look at my family wrong, and I'll get into a screaming match with you if you hit me one more time with your stroller or your wheelchair cause you're too incompetent to be pushing it. Which, by the by, DID happen. My disabled aunt and my disabled mother were walking in front of a person in a wheelchair, who didn't need the wheelchair but who was too lazy to be bothered with walking. I saw that the person pushing the wheelchair was not paying attention so I put myself in between my aunt and my mother and the wheelchair and braced myself and wham, she slammed right into me. Wheelchairs are not designed to hit people (like they design the strollers in the parks these days because they know parents are the worst when it comes to paying attention to where the hell they are going) so I had a deep cut on the back of my calf, but I didn't want her hitting either my aunt of my mother, because then they would have been out of commission for the rest of the trip and I would have been in jail awaiting trial for causing bodily harm to the chick pushing the wheelchair. So I turned around and told her to watch where she was going, as she apologized profusely, which I appreciated, but it still did not make the blood stop trickling down my leg or my limping onwards any less noticeable. Anywho, Disney has its ups and downs. You just have to put on a brave face and go with it if you really love it, as I do.
So Christmas was nice, but not normal. I'm all about normalcy so it threw me off a bit, but we had Christmas morning complete with presents, cinnebuns and being in your pajamas until 1 pm the first morning back. Hillary was with us from the day we got back until New Years Day, and then I drove her home and I stayed at her house from New Years Day until yesterday. We went to the aquarium in Mystic (Hill assured me it was much cooler than the New England Aquarium, which I've never been to, but I can't fathom anything in Connecticut being cooler than anything in Massachusetts), did the whole New Year's Eve thing (which at one point in time meant going to New York City to see the ball drop, but was quickly vetoed, and the end result was staying home with my friends and baking cookies and watching movies all night) and went out to dinner with the madre on our way back to Massachusetts. My mom really likes her, which is awesome cause I really like her. She's still convinced that this is a phase ("no one wants to date a 19 year old boy") but I think she is at least happy that I am very happy, and I'm eternally grateful to her that she let Hillary stay with us and let me go spend time with her in her neck of the woods.
When we were in MA we went to Northampton and saw Milk, which was really good, but I feel like it was lacking something maybe? It was more of a political movie than a gay rights movie, I feel. It just chronicled the political process and the trials and tribulations of being in the political spotlight. I wasn't disappointed in it, but generally I like movies with more... suspense. I'm realistic enough to know that everybody knows Harvey Milk was killed, so there could be no suspense there. Maybe this just wasn't my kind of movie, I dunno. Hillary liked it though. She cried at the end, it was cute, and I made fun of her for it for hours (I'm the best). We visited with her friends and family and played scrabble and watched movies and it was very nice and very relaxing. Her mom was talking about needing the roof to be done and stuff and I mentioned reshingling the house and she totally did not believe that I can do it, which only makes me want to do it more so reshingling the house has moved up to the number one spot on things to do this summer (well, number one behind finding a kick ass job).
So now I'm back home in CT, enjoying my break but looking forward to getting back to school. I did well in my grades last semester, though I could have done better but it was a tough semester and it's over and I'm glad. Lacrosse will start oh so very soon, so I need to seriously get to the gym every single day. I had a dream my problem with my knee caps came back and I was in excruciating pain every time we ran again and it was terrible (my problem with my knee caps will never go away, it just comes and goes sort of). I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things cause all this suspense is killing me.
Hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year!
Disney at Christmas is fabulous, if you ever have the chance or the desire, definitely go at that time of year. It's so beautiful, and the decorations are lovely. The only two things I regret about being in Disney for Christmas: Not being in church for Christmas eve/morning (particularly because this is my pastor's last Christmas with our church) and also the fact that none of the guests of Disney seem to comprehend the joy of the season. Everyone is still as pushy and blood thirsty as ever down in the good old Mouse's House. They'd knock you over as soon as look at you if they thought you would get on a ride even just a person before them, or get a better vantage point for the fireworks. Christmas spirit indeed, and all good Christians I'm sure. Disney brings out the worst in people, I swear, myself included. I don't mind tripping people who look at my family wrong, and I'll get into a screaming match with you if you hit me one more time with your stroller or your wheelchair cause you're too incompetent to be pushing it. Which, by the by, DID happen. My disabled aunt and my disabled mother were walking in front of a person in a wheelchair, who didn't need the wheelchair but who was too lazy to be bothered with walking. I saw that the person pushing the wheelchair was not paying attention so I put myself in between my aunt and my mother and the wheelchair and braced myself and wham, she slammed right into me. Wheelchairs are not designed to hit people (like they design the strollers in the parks these days because they know parents are the worst when it comes to paying attention to where the hell they are going) so I had a deep cut on the back of my calf, but I didn't want her hitting either my aunt of my mother, because then they would have been out of commission for the rest of the trip and I would have been in jail awaiting trial for causing bodily harm to the chick pushing the wheelchair. So I turned around and told her to watch where she was going, as she apologized profusely, which I appreciated, but it still did not make the blood stop trickling down my leg or my limping onwards any less noticeable. Anywho, Disney has its ups and downs. You just have to put on a brave face and go with it if you really love it, as I do.
So Christmas was nice, but not normal. I'm all about normalcy so it threw me off a bit, but we had Christmas morning complete with presents, cinnebuns and being in your pajamas until 1 pm the first morning back. Hillary was with us from the day we got back until New Years Day, and then I drove her home and I stayed at her house from New Years Day until yesterday. We went to the aquarium in Mystic (Hill assured me it was much cooler than the New England Aquarium, which I've never been to, but I can't fathom anything in Connecticut being cooler than anything in Massachusetts), did the whole New Year's Eve thing (which at one point in time meant going to New York City to see the ball drop, but was quickly vetoed, and the end result was staying home with my friends and baking cookies and watching movies all night) and went out to dinner with the madre on our way back to Massachusetts. My mom really likes her, which is awesome cause I really like her. She's still convinced that this is a phase ("no one wants to date a 19 year old boy") but I think she is at least happy that I am very happy, and I'm eternally grateful to her that she let Hillary stay with us and let me go spend time with her in her neck of the woods.
When we were in MA we went to Northampton and saw Milk, which was really good, but I feel like it was lacking something maybe? It was more of a political movie than a gay rights movie, I feel. It just chronicled the political process and the trials and tribulations of being in the political spotlight. I wasn't disappointed in it, but generally I like movies with more... suspense. I'm realistic enough to know that everybody knows Harvey Milk was killed, so there could be no suspense there. Maybe this just wasn't my kind of movie, I dunno. Hillary liked it though. She cried at the end, it was cute, and I made fun of her for it for hours (I'm the best). We visited with her friends and family and played scrabble and watched movies and it was very nice and very relaxing. Her mom was talking about needing the roof to be done and stuff and I mentioned reshingling the house and she totally did not believe that I can do it, which only makes me want to do it more so reshingling the house has moved up to the number one spot on things to do this summer (well, number one behind finding a kick ass job).
So now I'm back home in CT, enjoying my break but looking forward to getting back to school. I did well in my grades last semester, though I could have done better but it was a tough semester and it's over and I'm glad. Lacrosse will start oh so very soon, so I need to seriously get to the gym every single day. I had a dream my problem with my knee caps came back and I was in excruciating pain every time we ran again and it was terrible (my problem with my knee caps will never go away, it just comes and goes sort of). I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things cause all this suspense is killing me.
Hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year!
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