E Street Shuffle on an iPod Shuffle

Home to some of Springsteen's first concerts

Way back in the pre-iPod days, I would walk our family beagle around the block with a portable cassette player stuffed uncomfortably into my pocket.  My “Discman” was too vulnerable and required a flat, stable surface to function.  So I was stuck with the sturdier tape player and limited to the dregs of my parents’ small tape collection.  Luckily, I only needed one: Bruce Springsteen’s, “The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle.”

During dog walks alone, I must have listened to that album 100 times.  I’m especially partial to side two.  I don’t know exactly what “Incident on 57^th Street” is about, but I loved imagining myself in the rich setting of that song.  I would “drive in from the underworld,” hang out in back alleys next to worn down fire ladders, and plead with a beautiful Puerto Rican girl to make a better life for ourselves.  Of course, I’ve done literally none of those things and I probably wouldn’t actually want to do any of them.  Still, every time I hear that song I’m drawn in by the allure of that world.

I spent this past weekend in Asbury Park, New Jersey.  It’s a city filled with Springsteen lore and a place he references in album titles, song titles, and lyrics.  On Sunday morning, I abandoned my usual Colin Cowherd or Bill Simmons podcast during a run.  Instead, I threw on “The Wild, The Innocent, and The E Street Shuffle” and headed to the very boardwalk described in “4^th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy).”  It was daytime.  There were no fireworks.  And I don’t think the “Tilt-A-Whirl on the South Beach drag” exists anymore.  It didn’t matter.  It was a sacred 47 minutes, and a wonderful reminder of the rapturous power of music.  Besides, it was much more comfortable to hear the album through a tiny iPod shuffle and not a clunky, falling-out-of-my pocket cassette player.

Networking / What I like about Tim Tebow

In working to figure out what exactly to do in Philadelphia, I’ve been doing more networking than ever before.  The term intimidates me less than a month ago, though I  still have much to learn.  As an English major, I was a little confused, a little envious, and much relieved to be left out when my Business Administration and Accounting friends attended nebulous “networking” events with companies.

“So what do you do there?” I would ask, perplexed.

“You know, just talk.  Introduce myself, ask about the company, tell them about myself,” would come the vague reply.

I was intrigued.  How did a networking conversation differ from a regular, non-networking, human conversation?  The answer, I’m learning, is that it both does and doesn’t.  It’s similar because you are merely talking, communicating, exchanging information, trying to be friendly and funny like you would in meeting anyone new.  Yet it’s different because you are, on some level, hoping to mutually benefit in ways more tangible than simply enjoying social interaction for its own sake.  You’re more dependent on human kindness and your own charisma, hopeful that someone more important than you might take an interest and help you in a way that you cannot immediately (or maybe ever) repay.

Which brings me to part two of this entry’s title.  Who hasn’t worshipped some role model from afar?  Who hasn’t dreamt of becoming the next Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, or Tim Tebow?  I love reading or hearing stories of current role models talk about who they wanted to become before they grew up and became someone that thousands of others would want to become.  Lebron with the poster of Jordan in his childhood home.  Tobias Wolff reading Hemingway and knowing he wanted to write.  And is there a more inspiring, chill-inducing photograph than this?

In reaching out to people, networking, I can’t offer much to their careers at the moment.  Yet, years from now, I hope to pay their kindness forward, to help those who might appreciate what help I can offer.  And that’s what I like about Tebow.  He takes being a role model seriously.  He understands that millions of people idolize him.  He seems to know how five seconds of his time and attention could keep a fifth grader floating on air for a whole year.  Just look at that expression in young Bill Clinton’s eyes again.  He can’t, of course, offer much beyond his gratitude.  Not yet at least.

Emerging

Back in college, I took part in something called the “Emerging Leader Project.”  It mostly meant that we went on a cool weekend retreat to the mountains.  The trip was memorable because I learned how to play “mafia,” and because I met a girl whom I would later date for a few months.  I’m not sure whether or not it helped me emerge as a leader, though I did use the game of “mafia” to successfully get through some rainy afternoons as a tennis counselor.

Yesterday, I read a fascinating article on the concept of “emerging adulthood.”  Basically, there is some academic traction for reconfiguring the 20’s as a unique developmental stage, similar to what happened with “adolescence” in the 1900’s.  The article cites some compelling evidence – people marrying later, switching jobs and cities constantly before settling into a career, and depending financially and emotionally on their parents into their mid and late 20’s.

The article caught me at a particularly relevant life moment.  I’m 26.  I mostly feel like an adult, but other times the “emerging” modifier seems appropriate.  I’ve just moved to my third city in four years.  I live with my girlfriend but we’re not married.  I don’t ask my parents for money, but I certainly ask them for advice when faced with a major decision.  I’ve amassed four years of teaching experience, two with Teach for America in Los Angeles and two at a beautiful private school in Ecuador.  Yet I’m not sure whether or not to stay with teaching or pursue other goals.  Graduate School?  Maybe.  More seriously pursue writing?  Maybe.  Commit fully to teaching?  Maybe.  All these maybes add up to everything and nothing.  I don’t want to close doors, nor can I take an authoritative step towards any of the ones open before me.

The 20-Somethings quoted in the article express the same ambivalence.  Enthused by all the options, yet also wanting fewer choices just to simplify growing up.  It’s not unlike the chaotic debate after that first killing in “mafia.”  Lots of noise and ideas, many compelling but thin arguments.  So much possibility, such little resolution.

Former teacher Sly Stallone found a great new career

Philadelphia

I’ve been in Philadelphia for three days now.  As of yet, I can’t offer too much insight about restaurants, culture, or local sports.  However, I can state with authority that you immediately forget what city you’re in once inside Target, Ikea, or Walgreen’s.  We also visited Trader Joe’s, a store that often appeared in my dreams in Ecuador.  I’d especially missed all the great frozen foods, but I’d also forgotten about some products completely.  Seeing the five seed almond bars and the turkey meatballs was like discovering that your favorite band has three albums you’ve never heard.

Unfortunately, my Philadelphia arrival has coincided with a cold.  I should shake it soon, and hopefully explore places beyond massive chain stores.  There are literally hundreds of bars, coffee shops, and restaurants within a mile radius of our place.  I always like the idea of accumulating knowledge of various cities.  I always feel in a hurry to somehow solve a city, to quickly absorb and categorize the major street names, landmarks, parks, etc.  But knowing Philadelphia and adapting to life here will take time.  I’ll try to chronicle the best and worst of what I discover, as well as anything noteworthy between those extremes.

Notice the Quito artwork in the Philly apartment ...

The Allure of Bill Simmons

Indulge me in a few calculations here.  I started reading Bill Simmons 18 months ago after intentionally avoiding him for a while because his readers seemed obnoxiously loyal and enthusiastic to him.  I have since become one of those very readers.  He averages one column a week, long pieces that take about 20 minutes to read.  So that’s around 72 columns read, evening out because I skipped some and mined the archives for others.  Using the 20-minute per estimate, that’s 1,440 minutes or exactly 24 hours reading him.  But that’s not it.  There’s also the 3 – 4 weekly podcasts at around 45 minutes each.  So that’s about 11,340 more minutes or 189 more hours.  Let’s total it up.  That’s 213 hours spent either reading or listening to this guy over the last 18 months.

213 hours!  That’s more than five workweeks.  That’s more than the time I spent talking on the phone with my parents over the same time period.

And why?  He’s a fairly mediocre writer who specializes in Boston sports, the NBA salary cap, (not subjects I’m passionate about) and constantly references reality TV shows that I don’t watch or care about.  And as a radio presence he’s fluid but unspectacular, given to meandering and self-repetition.  Yet I’m not at all alone.  I can list five or six of my friends who’ve likewise devoted many, many hours to share the brain space of this guy.  If you type “email the …” in google his “sports guy” moniker shows up second, just behind the president.  His recent NBA book became, briefly, the top-selling book in the nation.  He’s entertaining, funny, and easy to read.  Still, does that justify three hours each week?In my defense, most of the podcasts were only part of some multi-task endeavor – running, cooking, killing time on Ecuadorian buses.

In Ecuador, he filled a very specific need for me.  His podcasts became comforting and familiar.  Even while jogging along the smog-filled streets of Quito I felt like I was lazily discussing sports in a half-empty bar.  It doesn’t hurt that Simmons often reminds me of Mike F., an old high school friend.  And, especially this last year, I didn’t have that many male friends.  There were a few other guy teachers, but I rarely saw them outside of work and often ended up the only male at an otherwise all female dinner.  Sports made only cameo appearances in most conversations.  I would sometimes talk sports with my students, but that was more my teaching them about basketball and (American) football or them teaching me about soccer.  Simmons and his usual podcast menagerie – JackO, Chuck Klosterman, J.A Adande, Dan Le Batard, House, Adam Carolla, Chris Connelly – offered exactly the kind of conversations I enjoy but wasn’t having much of in Ecuador.

Put another way, Simmons and company allow me to feel nostalgic about an existence I’ve never totally lived.  I dabble in fantasy sports and sometimes debate stats and free agent signings at a bar, but not all that often.  Based on the image presented in his writings and podcasts, you start to believe that all Simmons does is watch games, pore over stats, read other sportswriters, gorge on HBO and reality TV, and find occasional humor in being the father of young kids.  (In reality, I’m sure that the balance of his time is quite different.)  It’s not necessarily a world I’d want to live in, but as the numbers show I’m a very willing tourist there for around 30 minutes daily.

Home to stay

One thing we missed - backyard grilling

Rockies game

I’ve been back in the United States for a week, and the routines of my old life are gone.  I’m in Colorado, savoring all the things I couldn’t wait to enjoy.  Time with my family.  Big, definitively clean salads.  Drinking tap water.  Non-boxed milk.  Beers with subtle flavors.  Customer-focused service at restaurants.  Driving along suburban streets.  Eating dinners in the backyard.  All the open and green space.  Hiking today without nursing a hidden worry that I could be attacked by a group of bandits.  (Awful but true, there have been multiple such incidents on Pichincha).

And I don’t miss much about Ecuador, besides the job and my students.  I liked it there, but two years was my personal expiration date.  Another year there would have exhausted me and possibly soured me on the country.  After two years I left on good terms, a willing ambassador of the beauty and charm of the place.  As time passes, those two years may easily become idyllic when I wade through the memories and jaw-dropping photos.  The Galapagos, the jungle, the pristine school campus, the apartment by the park, the joy of teaching those kids.  It’s easy to see all these features becoming narrative touchstones in a simplified retelling of those two years.  And that wouldn’t be a lie.  It was a happy, mostly stress-free two years.  But nor would it be the whole truth.  There were frustrating days, moments of isolation and loneliness, hours when I craved deeply for people and products that Ecuador couldn’t provide.  Yet somehow those moments, the Sunday evenings of life, never quite harden into memory.  I know, with absolute certainty, that I was overworked and tired for nearly the entire time I taught in Los Angeles.  Even still, I can’t help feeling nostalgic when I picture my old classroom.  I think back to students that terrorized me and the remove of years allows me to fondly recall their quirks and our daily battles.

Before returning to the United States, others warned me about reverse culture shock.  Prior to moving to Ecuador, I spoke with a former CMSFQ teacher who told me that coming back to the U.S was much harder than leaving.  Another current teacher, who once left Menor and has since returned, said the same thing.  These were framing conversations.  One just before I moved and one just before I returned.  And I’ve been waiting for it.  Expecting that sense of dislocation and foreignness in my hometown.  It hasn’t hit yet, and maybe it won’t.  It was jarring, in a way, to see everyone on their cell phones at the Rockies game.  Whole Foods seemed an impossibly clean and aesthetically pleasing grocery store.  These observations didn’t surprise or alienate me though.  Maybe I never entered deeply enough into Ecuadorian life.  The United States remained my standard basis for comparison, and two years wasn’t quite enough to flip that paradigm.  I’m not suddenly noticing all the ways that Ecuador illuminated the flaws of the United States.  Not yet at least.  I may very well get there when I’m unemployed and some guy in Philadelphia screams at me with that patented east coast disdain.

As for this blog, I’m not sure what to do with it now.  I’ve loved writing for this space, and I don’t plan on stopping.  But I no longer have the cache of chronicling a life in Ecuador, though the foreign-teaching blog is no real novelty at this point.  Still, relocating and job-searching aren’t exactly the most stimulating subjects.  Maybe I’ll just write my thoughts on NBA free agency, given that it’s all so under-reported at the moment.

Hiking and photography, two of my dad's hobbies

Last Call

It’s time to start marking all the “last time” moments that will come in the next six days.  This has always been an important organizing principle for me, in allkinds of tasks.  There’s a satisfying solidness to knowing that it’s your last lap during a run or your last essay to grade in a slowly diminishing pile.

A series of trivial (but personally meaningful) “lasts” await me throughout the week.  Last bowl of Tasteeo’s, unless I get nostalgic and seek out the off-brand cereal in the United States.  Last Pilsener, an undistinguished beer that I can’t imagine missing, unless of course I see it in some high-end U.S liquor store and feel two years of compressed memories flood my senses and cloud my objectivity regarding its non-flavor.  Last time that I will be picked up by a little yellow school bus for teachers and settle comfortably into my second row seat for the 25-minute ride to school.  Last time that I will lug a five-gallon jug of water up our street, studiously avoiding the incredulous looks of my sidewalk companions.

Other substantial moments have already come and gone.  I have, sadly, seen most of my students for the last time; at least until 2014 when I hope to return to see them graduate.  Most of these goodbyes were scattered and anticlimactic, occurring hurriedly in the hallways at the end of their finals.  Often, they were overwhelmed and distracted by the euphoria of having turned in their final 8^th grade assignment.  And, despite earlier illusions of grandeur, I never gave the full, “you all have meant a tremendous amount to me,” speech that I once imagined.  I gave a half-version of it, but couldn’t manage to lose myself in it and express the magnitude of my fondness for them as a group.  I have enjoyed these two years, yet as I prepare to leave it is only the students that I am certain I will miss.

Hasta Luego

Doing your best?

As a teacher, I spill a lot of ink exhorting students to “do their best,” or to “fulfill their potential.”  I’ve written these words, or variations on them, so many times that it’s a nearly automatic response.  And often they’re necessary.  Many of my students (and all students, I imagine) turn in work that is rushed, sloppy, written and printed out without being re-read.

I remember four years ago, in a graduate school class, when a professor returned a paper with the ugly words, “not to your full potential,” scrawled at the bottom in pristine, block letters.  Not to my potential? Self-righteous indignation flooded through me like adrenaline during a chase.  Of course it wasn’t too my full potential!  I’d slept five hours that night.  I could barely stay awake at Panera an hour ago when I spent the best thirty minutes of my day eating a sandwich alone.  I had probably been screamed at by 15 kids that day.  I spent five hours that weekend planning, grading, and revising my classroom management system.  And then, miraculously, I had carved out maybe two hours on Sunday night to write a mediocre paper that I could turn in and forget about.  And now the week had started again and I was dying slowly in the back of a graduate school class after a full day teaching, and I’d be lucky to be home by 9:45 and maybe relax for 30 minutes before going to bed and back to it tomorrow.  And she had the audacity to tell me I could do better?

It was, perhaps, as angry as I’ve ever felt in a classroom.  Angry enough that just writing that last paragraph brought some heat back into my face.  And yet, I write those same words all over student papers without thinking twice.  Granted, there’s some difference.  Some of them could absolutely exert more effort and maybe, just maybe, those simple words will keep them off facebook fifteen minutes longer while they revise an essay.  But they might feel that same resentment.  Maybe their brother is sick or they played soccer until 7 P.M that night and then had piano practice.

The idea of “doing your best” is such a slippery phrase.  Go through your day today.  Did you do everything as well as you could have?  Did you listen to friends and family as intently and empathetically as possible?  Did you get to every thing you hoped to do?  Did you push yourself fully in a workout?  Did you do something nice for a stranger?  If you’re like me, the answers to many of those questions will be a resounding no.  Yet, the overall answer to whether you did your best that day could still be a hesitant yes, right?  Maybe you conserved energy and applied some of it to important tasks.  Maybe you made a small improvement you’d hoped to make.  It gets complicated pretty quickly.

And maybe I just need a cooler, English-teacher catch phrase to write on papers.  A former high-school teacher used to say “dance, red pen, dance” when he’d start to correct papers.  I also heard Stephen King (I think it was him) tell the story of a former teacher who would write, “sink or swim?” at the end of an essay and then follow that, using a few inches of dramatic white space, with “gulp, gulp, gulp.”  Suggestions welcome.

Let the statistics show . . .

Statistics are strange in soccer.  So much of the game doesn’t show up in any numerical way and can’t be quantified.  Still, if I had to put together my own meaningful numbers (as goalie) from Thursday’s students vs. faculty game, they would look like this:

Goals Allowed: 3

Saves: 0

Handball out of the box, generously allowed by the student ref: 1

Students that I knocked the wind out of on plays of questionable legality: 1

Students who later mentioned this play of questionable legality in class: 177

The student I knocked over lay gasping on the ground for those terrifying 30 seconds that always accompany having the breath knocked out of you.  From there, he gingerly got up and played the rest of the game.  I shakily returned to goal and promptly let another ball pass me and meet the resistance of the back of the net.  For the rest of the day, every student I encountered asked why I had tried to kill “Colombia,” the injured student’s nickname.

I had no answer, and I also had no answer about whether the tackle was truly a foul.  Asked for a truly honest answer, some students said yes because I went for the man rather than the ball and some said definitely not.  Whatever the answer, my slow humiliation throughout the rest of the day was adequate punishment.  Around this time last year, I suffered similarly when I fell about five times and a student dribbled between my legs and around me.

In my defense, some of my students are exceptionally good, or at least it seems.  One of the goals was a beautiful header into the corner of the net, a shot that I imagine would be impressive at most U.S high schools.  I’ve watched, wincing, as these same kids hoist awkward jump shots with both elbows flared or as they drop the football while taking it back to pass.  Yet their speed, their lower-body coordination, their crisp passing, and their sense of timing and spacing are testament to an athletic grace I never learned.  And, as the stats show, it’s probably too late for me to figure it out at this point.

Meaning of Mundial

I’m slowly learning that, for most of the world, the World Cup becomes a central organizing principle of life during its month run.  Many students were absent Friday, excused from school by sympathetic soccer-crazed parents.  Those that did come unearthed cell phones at every possible moment to check scores.  Ecuador is not even in the World Cup this year, but that doesn’t matter.  It’s ubiquitous anyway, carrying a gravity that tilts much of daily life towards it.  Other examples.

-Trying to learn a bit more about soccer myself, I’ve asked some of my students to diagram typical tactics on the class whiteboard.  One student nicely explained the idea of triangulation and greatly helped me to understand the importance of spacing and crossing the ball to change up the defense.  If, however, there are any real soccer fans reading this and what I’ve just written is incoherent, then I didn’t grasp the lesson as well as I thought.

-Our school administration decided to show the World Cup games in the cafeteria throughout next week.  Teachers can choose to take their classes if they would like.  I should also mention that next week is review week, the final week of intensive review before the year-ending final exams.

-Despite Ecuador’s non-appearance, the streets were eerily calm this morning.  Usually Saturday morning means car horns, ambient street noise, and rambling political diatribes via megaphones.  This morning, these sounds were non-existent.

-For the past few months, students have been ravenously collecting stickers to fill Mundial notebooks.  You can buy the notebook at SuperMaxi, the main supermarket chain.  The notebook has blanks for all 32 teams and all 11 starters on each team.  You then buy player stickers and put them in the right spot.  There are many prize opportunities, apparently, for a completed book.  Trading, arguing, and discussion centered on these notebooks has been unceasing for months.  Of the 66 students I see daily, at least 50 have their notebook in their backpack at all times, roughly the same number who have the class novel we’re reading.

It’s too bad that Ecuador’s team struggled down the stretch in their qualifying run.  I can scarcely imagine the national fervor that would vibrate throughout the country – like a Broncos Super Bowl, Avalanche Stanley Cup, Rockies World Series, and Nuggets NBA Finals all rolled into one.

Later this week, I’ll play in the 8^th grade vs. faculty soccer game.  I acquitted myself well in the basketball game in December, but that’s a sport I know.  Fear about my knee will probably force me to play goalie – it’ll be much more Robert Green than Tim Howard, I’m sure.  I won’t have to deal with the ruthless English press, but I’ll face plenty of satisfied critics in my own classroom.