my name is karel. i'm 26 years old and reside in portland, oregon, although i'm from the east coast - new jersey and new york city, specifically. currently i'm a graduate student in school counseling. i have numerous artistic pursuits, including writing, graphic design, jewelry design, and knitting. (although i'm actually quite bad at knitting.) i have a failproof weakness for chef boyardee beef ravioli.
portland blog - my boyfriend brian and i document our adventures out west
sunshower design jewelry - my handmade jewelry business
scrawl - password-protected site for my writing (email me for access)
pdx hoods - coming soon!
frustration
future
living
pop culture
school
self
September 2009
October 2009
November 2009
December 2009
January 2010
and now, to get moralistic Labels: frustration, school, self
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
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One of my classes this term is called "Effective Teaching," and in it, we're learning about a teaching method called Tribes Learning Communities (TLC). Essentially, the idea is to build a community atmosphere in schools and draw away from the traditional classroom setting (students in rows facing the blackboard, teacher at the front of the room, lecturing, etc.) as the world changes around us. Sounds cool and idealistic, right?
That's because it is. In one of the chapters I read today, an administrator and long-time Tribes trainer told a story about a misunderstanding she had with a student who was from a culture that was different from Western, American culture, and different from her own culture. Through reflection and research, she came to understand where the discrepancy had been, and this became a great life example used to promote the incorporation of Tribes into more schools.
I couldn't help but feel reminded of a particularly heart-wrenching experience I had in my last job - one that I never wrote about, but always meant to - that still angers and saddens me months later. As you may know or remember, I last worked for a Mandarin Immersion Program in a public elementary school in Portland. The student population was probably around 50% Chinese, and I'm estimating that about 15% of those kids came from households where barely any English was spoken. Their parents worked blue-collar jobs in the Chinese community (shop or restaurant owners or workers) and really didn't need much of a handle on English to survive here.
There was one student in particular who stood out to me, mostly because he was almost late for school every day and I would see him scurrying from his mom's car into the school as I waited for the extremely tardy bus to arrive during bus duty. Also, he wore classic Asian-kid clothes (you know, matching sweatsuits with vinyl animals and other sorts of patterns on them, or hand me down track pants and a Cosby sweater) and I thought he was so cute. Anyway, because of my station in the main office, I learned pretty quickly of a disciplinary situation that came up one day involving him: he had been selling things to little girls in his classroom, and when the girls' parents found out, they were upset. Rightly so.
The problem, though, was that this child (we'll call him J) was not 'fessing up to anything when questioned by the principal. He would just sit there and stare at his lap and cry, and when pressed repeatedly, he would lie to her and say what he thought she wanted him to say. Yes, his parents knew he was selling these things. No, he had not kept the money. (Where did it go? That question was never answered) These incongruencies only frustrated the principal and caused her to add more allegations to his referral - not only had he been exchanging money in the classroom, but he also lied - and it was decided that J ought to be suspended for the rest of the day.
For a suspension, a parent or guardian needs to come in and have a meeting with the principal before taking the child home. Because the principal didn't speak a word of Chinese, I was asked to sit in on the meeting as a translator. I didn't think much of it going in, but after it happened I was so thankful to have been there for that family, because what happened in that office was a quietly distressing example of underhanded ignorance that I had not expected to witness.
Imagine that you are J. You are six years old, and your parents, extended family, and pretty much your entire community is Chinese - just like you. You primarily speak Cantonese at home, but your parents have also taken measures to make sure you learn Mandarin, and you spend half your school day in Mandarin class and the other in English class - but you also get pulled out of class a few days a week for special English and reading classes. One of your teachers looks like all of the grownups you know, but one of them doesn't. Most of the grownups in the school don't. The principal doesn't. The six hours you spend in school a day are pretty much the only interaction that you have with white people, and half the time you're not quite sure what they're saying to you because they're talking so fast in English.
Then you get in trouble in class and get sent to the principal's office. The principal is a large white lady with a stern look on her face who keeps pressing you to tell her what you did, and when you are too frightened of her to answer, she only gets sterner and meaner and tells you that you can just sit in the office and wait until you're ready to talk to her. Except you are so uncomfortable and intimidated in the presence of a white, English-speaking adult that the only words that come to your brain are in Chinese. Her English words start to not make that much sense to you, so you can barely even nod in response to her questions.
As I sat in the principal's office with J, his mother, and the principal, translating to J's mother the best I could, I could feel J's fear creeping out of his little head and clouding over the whole table. His mother talked to him quietly in Mandarin and Cantonese, and he replied to her quite easily, but when he was asked to repeat it to the principal in English, he would stutter. And I watched as the principal responded to him in the same way she responded to the repeat offenders who showed up in her office day after day. The white kids, who didn't see her as a foreigner, speaking a language that was still halfway unfamiliar to them. She treated J just like she would treat anyone else in her school, but the simple truth is that he isn't like "anyone else" in her school. Roughly 15% of 50% of the kids in her school aren't like "anyone else" in her school. Their home life looks completely different from the home life she knows. They have a different view of authority. They have a different view of white people. Many of them fear white grownups, simply because they are not exposed to them for much of their lives, and what little exposure they might have could be ignorant or discriminatory behavior toward them and their family. That's the simple, ugly truth.
I suppose I generally have a more forgiving nature than many adults toward children, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't the only thing at play here. J definitely deserved to be disciplined in some way, to be taught that what he did was a wrong choice. But he didn't make that choice out of spite, nor anger, nor any ill intention. He made a silly mistake, and was then intimidated into making another mistake of lying. He wasn't spoken to at his level, in his culture, nor even in his native language - and none of those factors were taken into consideration in the assessment of his reactions. I was so beaten down coming out of that meeting, and I hadn't even been the one in trouble!
I had a chance to speak with J before he left school that day. I didn't want him to leave without hearing something from a grownup who spoke his language, looked like him, and wanted to understand him. He told me that he had been frightened of the principal, and that he hadn't quite understood everything she was saying to him. I asked him if he knew what he had done wrong, and he said yes, but he didn't know why it was wrong. When I explained it to him, I stayed on his level and framed it as a teaching moment, not a punishing moment. He was able to look at me and really hear me, and while he was still very shy and withdrawn, I could tell that he felt much more comforted and resolved.
This story and all of the emotions that it brewed up in me have stayed with me since that day, and although this is the first time I'm writing about it, it's not the first time I've told it. It doesn't really feel any better to tell it, because I know it's still happening. The principal is still at the school, that population of Chinese immigrants' children is still there, and inevitably some of them will end up in her office on a first offense and feel scared, intimidated, maybe confused, but worst of all, unsafe. And that reflection that I mentioned above, the one that I read about in my textbook, the one that helped the administrator understand how she had completely misread her student - that isn't happening. The resources, the will, the intent is just not there.
It's episodes like this - and there were quite a few during my year at the school - that reaffirm my desire to enter the school counseling field. Issues of multiculturalism and diversity are simply ill-handled in many public education systems, and although I'm just one person, I hope that I'll be able to make some sort of impact, somewhere. And soon.
apparently october is busy
Thursday, October 22, 2009
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Oh dear. Has it really been seven days already? (Eight, if you consider that I'm writing this after midnight?) Let's see... what's happened in the past couple weeks?
1. My mom came to visit! She was here last weekend and in the days leading up to her visit, I was occupied with getting the apartment ready, doing laundry, etc. It was her first time visiting Portland so of course I had to impress her :) She was supposed to arrive on Thursday night, the 15th, but due to a delayed flight out of New Jersey, she missed her connection and had to spend the night in Denver. And of course, the classy airline did not offer to pay for lodging. It turned out that when she'd boarded the plane, they had made her check her carry-on because there 'was no more room' in the cabin, and when she was stranded in Denver, they basically told her there was no way for them to retrieve her carry-on. So she spent the night with just her purse. United Airlines = EPIC FAIL. (By the way, I cannot believe I just used that terminology. I really try my best to not buy into all these silly 21st century, Web 2.0 lingo-isms, but I just do not have other words for my feelings about all that.)
Anyway, she ended up arriving on Friday afternoon instead, and we took our time getting settled in and relaxing, since she'd had quite a travel ordeal. We checked out the Classical Chinese Garden downtown, which is a pretty little city block, but highly overrated, in my cynical Asian American opinion. She enjoyed it, though, and we took a lot of cheesy photos, as we Asians do best. :) That night, Brian and I took her to Hopworks Urban Brewery for dinner, as she had requested an authentic Portland experience. Pizza and beer in a sustainable building - sounded perfect! Then, fittingly, we were sat right next to three gleaming pinball machines.
Now would be a good time to inform you that my boyfriend is certifiably the most enthusiastic of pinball enthusiasts I have ever met in my life. Not that I've met many, but I'm sure that in my lifetime thus forward, I won't meet any more enthusiastic anyway.
Saturday, we had planned to go to the Japanese Garden, so that my mom could see a slightly larger representation of Asian foliage, but those plans were foiled by a rather intense rainstorm!! I decided to give her a driving tour of the east side of the city instead, and showed her my previous dwellings as well as the school where I used to work. That night, Brian and I decided that it would be awesome to take her to the Kennedy School for dinner - again, a very Portland thing to do. I think she was more confused than amused though. Haha.
Sunday, we headed out to Multnomah Falls for a hike. Even though it's only a mile hike to the top of the falls, it's pretty much an uphill climb the whole way! I don't think my mom was expecting it to be so grueling (I've done it before, but I was still caught off-guard!), but she was a total trooper and made it all the way up :) Lots more cheesy Asian photos were taken, of course. We finished off the day with the most delicious pizza ever at Dove Vivi, probably the best pizza place you've never heard of in these parts. Seriously. I'm drooling just thinking about it.
So anyway! Those were the highlights of the visit. She headed off to San Francisco on Monday morning to visit some family, and then I launched right back into real life with...
2. My first (but not really the first) grad school exam. I say not really, because I took a few exams this past summer for my prerequisite courses, which were in fact graduate level courses. But for the sake of some solidarity with the rest of my cohort, I'll say it was the first. Eh, it was okay. I did most of my studying on Monday after I got back from the airport, and that session was peppered with uncontrollable catnaps. I'm not a fan of objective testing (multiple choice... really?), mostly because it's so dry and formulaic, and I usually end up just giving up on studying and assuming that I can just wing it when the time comes. Now, do I think that's a good strategy? Uh... no. But it worked this time, and I doubt that my mother will be visiting the weekend before every exam.
In fact, I have another exam that is a take-at-home (on Blackboard) and due on Friday. I've kind of studied for it, but since it is entirely multiple choice, without even the threat of a curveball short answer, I'm really not too strung out about it.
I guess I'm still waiting for grad school to kick the living shit out of me like all my friends' experiences have led me to believe will happen. Next term, perhaps?
Oh, my laptop battery is about to die, and as it's 1:39am I should probably think about getting some sleep. Good night all!
upswing
Thursday, October 1, 2009
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One of my classes for this term is called "Practicum: Group Counseling" and what it basically entails is about 10 of us in weekly sessions of group counseling. Now, as I mentioned a few days ago, I'm currently in individual counseling. So essentially, I will be spending three hours a week, in two separate environments, talking about and exploring my feelings and all that lovely stuff.
Some of the feelings that my peers have expressed about being in Group (which is what it will apparently be called from here on in) are nervousness, ambivalence, and a fear of disclosing too much about themselves to a group of strangers who will soon become their closest colleagues. Okay, I get that. But is it strange that I was excited to learn about it? I love peer groups! I love sharing! And I love the incredible diversity, yet universality, of the human experience.
Very recently, though, there has been some turmoil that pretty much blindsided me, and it's still so raw that it's bleeding. I'm not one for holding back when I feel that it's a safe situation to disclose, but I also am not sure that I'm ready or equipped to dive into this one with the aforementioned group of strangers. Why? Well, for one, it's the first session. For another ... I wonder how it might impact me in the future. After all, these are my colleagues, and in fact, several of them are in my specific track. And I'd like to be friends with them. Not that I think they're jerks who will run away screaming, but sometimes stuff like that can be sort of awkward.
Another part of me, though, wonders if this is coming just in time. I've been thinking about spirituality again lately, fate, God, signs, all that, and wonder if it's something that will help guide me through this next phase in life. Maybe this is the right moment for me to open up - something that I've only had rare opportunities to do lately, with the exception of Brian (and poor Brian, for that). I've spent so much energy here withholding, retreating, and fearing the kind of true, raw emotional connection that I've thrived on ever since college taught me to be open, inviting, and accepting ... maybe this is just the push I need to get back into the life, the existence, the me that I belong in. And all of this - my recent revelations about myself, my program starting, being placed in Group this term, my classmates being in my group, and this fresh new wound I'm nursing - happened because it needed to.
I feel myself reawakening, more and more each day. It's autumn now, which I'm pretty sure has officially solidified itself as my new favorite season (as long as the sun peeks out every once in a while... please, Portland?). I arrived downtown early for class tonight, grabbed a cup of coffee, and spent some time sitting in the university park blocks, doing nothing but slowly sipping and thinking - and I thought, how could I have done so long without this serenity, this 'me time'? How could I have let myself slip away so completely? Why have I denied myself this contentment, this slow release of tension ... for over a year? I don't have the answers to these questions. All I can surmise is that I let sadness and nostalgia get the best of me, and its consequences have readily presented themselves. But I refuse to succumb to them anymore. If my past has taught me anything, it's that I do have the strength and the ability to overcome the shadows that bear down on me, and I am capable of reclaiming my independence, from any stage of brokenness. I wish that these realizations had come sooner, but I can't focus on the past any longer. From here, I look upward and move forward with the faith that everything around me will fall into the right places.
Wish me luck at Group. :)
first day of school
Monday, September 28, 2009
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As I finally, finally begin grad school - a moment that I've been waiting something like two years for - I'm realizing how out of touch I am with my social being. I'm currently seeing a counselor on campus, something that is recommended for all counseling students for the duration of their time in the program, and really for all of their lives, and through talking to her I've come to realize just how much Portland has changed me - and perhaps not for the better.
Before I get into any more of this, I must say that I am happy here. Transitions are tough for anyone, and I'm notoriously bad with change. I think all things considered, the fact that I'm still motivated to move forward and immerse myself in creative endeavors indicates that I'm doing okay. I'm certainly doing much, MUCH better than I was last winter.
But the truth is, I am different than I was in New York, even than I was in New Jersey before we headed out here. Part of it is my recurring health issues - I've been having chronic eye irritation and inflammation since we moved here, which has pretty much completely prevented me from wearing contact lenses. It seems like no big deal, but it is - glasses have not been a part of my style/appearance for so long that I simply do not feel like myself. They're almost like a barrier between me and my surroundings, and as a result I've reverted back to my shy, wallflower-ish former self. That, combined with a recent dry skin flare-up (eczema? Rosacea? Seborrheic dermatitis? As yet undetermined) that's rendered my face slightly ruddy and very flaky, has made me want to retreat even further. Sigh.
This was all very easy to avoid when I was working at Woodstock - when you're surrounded by children all day, there's less of a need to feel socially competent and impressive. Now, though, I've been thrown into the company of about 50 other first year grad students in my program, and we're all making our first impressions on each other. I'm feeling an intense pressure to be as outgoing as I used to be, back when I worked at Digitas and mingled with other 20-somethings all day every day - but the introversion that has overtaken me in the past year keeps pulling me back. I feel not myself, yet at the same time it's a retreat that I recognize from my older past.
Anyway, today really marked the start of what I'm sure will be three of the most formative and pivotal years of my life, as I mentioned in my previous post. As I rode the bus home in the misty night (fall has officially arrived - we're bracing ourselves) I felt a renewed energy to slowly reconstruct my life and my being, one block at a time. Whatever health issues I'm dealing with, I'll have to pony up and deal with, and make the best of it... I know that I'm still the same person inside.
To come in later posts this week: my new creative projects, exciting news about my future, and a lovely true story from last week involving Brian, his bike, and a guy with incredibly unjustified road rage. Betcha can't wait!
anew
Sunday, September 27, 2009
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Wow! I have been away for far too long. In fact, I believe it's been over a year since I switched to wordpress because I hated my blog layout but didn't have enough time, energy, or brainpower to design a new one. And then, let's be honest, I pretty much sucked at blogging all spring and summer.
However, I had always fully intended on returning to the blog-world. In fact, in the past few months, there have been many moments during which I thought, I should blog about this. Then I would remember that my blog was a sorry excuse for a blog, hang my head in shame, and cry myself to sleep. Finally, just last week, I decided to stop wallowing in my self-pity and just get the new design up so I had it done before classes start tomorrow.
Oh, yeah! I'm officially a grad student now, and my first term starts tomorrow. I had my orientation last Thursday, which was a long day of tons of information dumping, but served well to make me even more anxious to start than I had already been all summer. My program is three years, including summers, and I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that when I finish school, I'll be 29. That's almost 30!!!
In fact, I've begun to realize that the next four years of my life are going to be extremely pivotal with regards to my future. I'll be pursuing my Masters - a step toward an actual, defined career with some sort of direction. In that process, I'll be hopefully meeting many influential people in my field and really building a fruitful professional network. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I'll most likely be planning my wedding, and post graduation, having my wedding. And then my real life will begin! And I'll turn 30 for real!
Anyway, I'm writing this with Mythbusters blaring in the background, a congested right nostril (well, the whole right side of my face, really), and several hours of fatigue weighing down on me. I'd better get to bed so I can be rested for my first day of class (!!!) and for blog posts of higher quality to come.
