Epic Philly Weekend

I'm on the Greyhound back to New York, tuckered out from a packed anniversary weekend! Dave and I were determined to be tourists in Philly this weekend, taking in the historic sights, eating out, and paying for parking. We paid for parking multiple times and didn't even fight about it! Life progress.

On Saturday, Dave and I went to check out the historic sites in Old City. Though we wanted to act like tourists, we neglected to plan like tourists, so many of the tours were already booked up. We did, however, get to visit Old City Hall and the old Congress Hall. We missed Independence Hall, and the line for the Liberty Bell was too long, but we achieved at least one goal: an encounter with the visitor center's mascots.

Then we fulfilled Dave's longtime dream by visiting the U.S. Mint. I have an intellectual block in which I can't deal with anything having to do with coins, but the visit was actually pretty interesting. I guess in theory, numismatics is interesting and important. It's just when I come face to face with a coin that I want to run away. I took no pictures of the Mint. We do, however, have other touristy pictures: the Barnes Foundation, Logan Fountain, and Elfreth's Alley.

The primary reason we were in Philly was to celebrate the wedding of my lovely friends, A. and A. The ceremony and reception were held at Bartram's Garden, a beautiful historic garden just off Island Avenue. It was peaceful and rustic, yet convenient to I-95. Who knew? The weather was absolutely perfect, as is the couple. The collage below includes a picture of the bride doing a traditional Greek dance to bouzouki music with her parents!

We spent our actual anniversary at the Philadelphia Zoo. It felt like summer's already in full swing, with the hordes of children, warm weather, and my craving for ice cream.

And finally, let's talk about food. Cheesesteaks from Tony Luke's (whiz wit', please), real Italian hoagies, Franklin Fountain Ice Cream, an 11-course tasting menu at Serpico, and "Choo-choo Train," my favorite Vietnamese restaurant whose real name I can't pronounce. Ah, the tastes of home.

One year

Can you believe it? Dave and I are celebrating our first anniversary this weekend in Philadelphia! Remember this?

It feels strange to have reached this milestone already. I did a rough survey last night of how often we've been together, and we have spent less than 50% of our first year of marriage in the same state as one another. It's not what I had dreamed of for my life or marriage so far. I know more about living with Stephen and Grace and two little ones than I know about living with my own husband! In a way, I feel like we haven't "earned" our anniversary, since we haven't lived life together for a year yet. I feel like we've had a two year engagement, just with a wedding in the middle. We're committed to each other, we know we want to be together, we are preparing to share our lives, and we're still waiting for the fulfillment to come.

And yet when I look through pictures like the one above, all of the emotions rush right back to the surface. There's my husband, there are the commitments we made, and despite the distance this year, I know that we have grown together, learned to love each other more deeply, and discovered many of the blessings and challenges of marriage.

My hope is that this year of patience, enduring alone, and loving while apart will have developed relationship skills that will save us in the times ahead. In the meantime, we continue to wait for good news about Dave's job, and we do our thing every day. But this weekend: CHEESESTEAKS.

Oh yeah: hello ladies! You're the best.

Kids these days

I'd like to record something I learned about my students from reading their final papers: they are much better at writing about visual images than they are at writing about texts. Throughout the semester, I've had my students do close readings of important passages; I've also asked them to analyze a painting nearly every class, looking for details that convey the artist's interpretation of a specific myth. For the final paper, students had a choice of writing about a painting depicting a particular myth or comparing two different texts that treat the same basic mythological episode.

I was surprised by the results: the vast majority – and all of the "weaker" students – chose to write about an image, and nearly all of these wrote more successful papers than I had anticipated. These are students who have a lot of difficulty picking notable details out of texts – they aren't very sensitive to word choice, or tone (e.g., sarcastic, bombastic, self-aggrandizing), or rhetorical effect. Yet, when given an image to work with, they find meaning in color, facial expression, lighting, posture, composition, perspective, etc. It was great!

Short of assigning all visual analysis exercises, what to do with this experience? One thing that I might do is teach close reading as an analogue to visual analysis. That is, start with students' strengths and allow them to build their confidence – yes, they know how to observe, comment, interpret, and form that into an argument about a painting! And we use the same skills with close reading; we just transfer those skills onto textual material. Part of the issue is that it's easier for students to see that artists are interpreters, since they encounter the text first; I want them to see that writers are interpreters, too. Working with translations can be tricky as well.

I'll have to ponder this further. But I'll have plenty of time to do so – I don't think I'll be grading papers for another year and half, thanks to teaching release time! I'll still be teaching languages, but I'll be focused less on culture/literature/history curricula. I really enjoy teaching the culture stuff, but languages have always been my first love, so hurray!

A Day at the Park

My cousin Christina and her husband Peter came up to Queens specifically to celebrate the anniversary of the World's Fair in NYC. They invited us to join them, so Stephen, A., and I headed out to Flushing Meadows Corona Park; it was my first time to the sprawling complex of professional sports facilities, recreation areas, parkland, amusement rides, the zoo, the gardens, the museum, etc. It was quite the scene!

One thing that has been nice about this period of living in New York is that I'm learning a lot more about the outer boroughs. I haven't been to the Upper West or Upper East side very often at all. Instead, I'm learning the neighborhoods in Brooklyn, eating in Flushing, and here, observing the wonderful diversity that can be found in the public spaces of Queens. I always think of living in New York as being impossible for so many reasons, but it really is a different experience outside of Manhattan.

The Unisphere, which I totally thought was just a movie prop. Turns out it's very real.

The siren song of the carousel

Someone had a very good time on the carousel!

I *met* Mr. and Mrs. Met! <wince>

This is the incredible panoramic scale model of New York City in the Queens Museum. It's 100 feet:1 inch, and they keep it updated. There are little airplanes that land at and depart from La Guardia, and the lights simulate from dawn to dusk. I'm standing basically over Coney Island; that's Manhattan towards the top left, with all the tall buildings surrounding the "empty" rectangle of Central Park.

A Brooklyn Kind of Day

Before I start – a special birthday salute to Dave! He's in Ann Arbor, and I'm in New York, and I guess that's just the way it happens in long-distance marriages. But I sure am glad he was born!

Today I met up with a new friend who is also a first-year tenure-track professor in the humanities. She had the brilliant idea of meeting up with friends on Friday (when few people teach) to do work, and then rewarding herself by doing something interesting. Today, we met up at the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library to grade final papers:

The exterior is beautiful and imposing, while the interior feels a little worn out. But we found a quiet table by a big window and set to work. I'm not used to seeing this kind of message posted on library walls, though:

Sad! I hadn't wanted to write on stairwell walls, but after I read the notice, I was a little tempted <shhhhh!>.

After our grading (read: complaining) party, we headed over to the Brooklyn Museum to check out the new "Ai Weiwei: According to What?" exhibit. I was too exhausted to be fully open to the experience, but I did really enjoy it. These two pieces were my favorite:

 This piece is called "Straight," and it's made out of 73 tons of straightened rebar. The rebar came from crumpled homes destroyed in the Sichuan earthquake that killed so many schoolchildren.

This is "Moon Chest," part of a series of beautiful quince wood chests lined up parallel to each other, but with a circular hole cut in the center of each. They are aligned so that when you look through the hole, you get a sense of the changing phases of the moon.

It was raining, I had to take the train, umbrellas in my face, blah blah blah; but overall, it was a good Brooklyn day. (Just don't ask me about those papers I was grading.)

Theseus and the Minotaur

I'm teaching a mythology class this semester, and I've been loving it. I get to read and talk about amazing literature that students can really relate to – what's not to like? Apparently, I'm not the only one enjoying the experience. I was grading a stack of pop quizzes today, and I turned over the page to find this:

One of my students had drawn a labyrinth for me, complete with a smiling Theseus holding Ariadne's thread and a horned Minotaur lurking within. The red pen is mine, solving the puzzle. I can't really imagine doing this for any of my professors in undergrad, but then again, I don't think I ever had a professor as young as me!

Pressure Cooker Palooza 2014

Today is Mother's Day, and for the first time, Dave and I spent it with each of our mothers. Hurray for returning closer to home! We took Dave's parents out to lunch in NJ; it was a beautiful day, and we ate our first meal of the season outdoors. But before we went to lunch, Dave played most of the Moonlight Sonata for his mom. She was surprised and delighted.

In the afternoon, back on L.I., Stephen and I prepared a Mother's Day meal for my mother and Grace. We usually pick a "theme ingredient" (Iron Chef-style) that unites all of the courses. This year, we upped the ante: we'd have a theme ingredient (orange) AND a theme technique (pressure cooker)! It was Pressure Cooker Palooza 2014!

 It's a three pressure cooker kind of meal!

 Chickpea and Artichoke Tagine

Bacon-braised Brussel Sprouts, Pomegranate-Orange Short Ribs, Mashed Sweet Potato

 

Red-wine Poached Pears with Marscapone

And here's one happy grandma, in matching aprons with her granddaughter:

A retirement party

A couple of weeks ago, I hosted a big party/fundraiser for the language program I direct. The occasion had two purposes: to celebrate the career of my predecessor and to establish a scholarship fund in his honor. In its forty-plus year history, my program had never held a fundraising event, so I was a bit nervous. Would anyone come? Would we raise any money? How embarrassing would it be if we went through all this work and sent out invitations and planned a big party, and then no one showed up and we raised $40? I had no experience with this type of event planning, and I wasn't receiving much help from others either. I got pretty stressed out.

But, as these things tend to do, it came together at the last minute. A colleague of mine offered the use of his brownstone and patio in Murray Hill as an event space. This saved us thousands of dollars. The college's Communications office designed beautiful invitations for us, and the college Foundation paid for printing the invitations. We sent out over 1200 invitations to alumni and friends of the program all over the world. And then I waited to see what would happen!

In addition to organizing the party, I was responsible for the food, drink, music, program, and general coordination. This was a lot of work. I wanted it to be all classy-like, but we had no money for it in the budget, and I was planning an event in Manhattan at someone else's house, which comes with its own complexities. In the end, about 60 people came, we raised over $20,000, and most of all, my former boss/mentor felt honored and appreciated. All four decades of alumni were represented, as well as many departmental colleagues. I was really inspired: I could look around the room and see the legacy of a 40-year teaching career. I don't think anyone will be saying the kinds of things about me that people were saying about my predecessor, but it is a worthy goal to aspire to!

 We got lucky with the weather: the previous day had dumped 5 inches of rain on the city, but the sun came out just two hours before the party was due to start. A vigorous sweep of the patio and quick arrangement of furniture made it the perfect place to chat over wine.

Presentation of the food!

People came and ate

Listening to toasts out on the patio

Including mine – can't resist a captive audience!

And my real triumph: my predecessor loves tapirs, and we gave him a book print from an 18th century French natural history text. I found the print, paired it with a quote (suggested by a colleague) from Euripides, and got the thing custom matted and framed, all within a week before the party!

I never want to do this again – I will find the money beforehand to hire a darn caterer – but I have to say, in the end, it was worth it.

Million Dollar Bike Ride

Last weekend was the big day: the charity bike ride I had been "training" for! It was the Million Dollar Bike Ride, sponsored by Penn Medicine to raise money for rare disease research. My mom was diagnosed with the rare lung disease lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) over a decade ago; the disease has no known cure, and little federal funding is available for a disease that affects a relatively limited group of women. It is only through the efforts of a small group of dedicated researchers, supported in large part by private funds, that even one treatment has been discovered recently. Our team of riders raised money for the LAM Foundation, which will direct the funds towards LAM research.

It was a beautiful day for a ride. Once I put on the race jersey, I felt that I had achieved peak sportiness of my entire life. I did only the shortest option (11 miles), and it involved pedaling up at least one hill, so I felt like it required plenty of effort! The route began on Penn's campus in West Philadelphia, wound past the zoo, and into Fairmount Park. It was fun to go past sites that were all discrete in my mind: the Please Touch Museum, the Horticulture Center, the Mann Music Center, etc. I'm inspired: this race was ostensibly the "first annual," so maybe I'll try to go even further next year! Anyone else want to join me?

Go team!

With my parents

S. came up to Philly to do the ride with me – except she went for 35 miles! Way to go!!!

Happy 100 Days, M.!

Today was the 100-day party (baek-il) for my nephew, M.! His grandparents, uncles and aunties, and cousins came to celebrate. He's becoming a little chubster!

 Cousins!

The family

Auntie and Nephew