Se Hace Camino Al Andar

I really like NY Teacher’s newest post in which she outlines the past decade of her life. My memory is notoriously bad but I’m going to give it a shot and see how it all lays out!

2000: The second semester of my junior year at NYU School of Ed finds me studying in Prague, where I take classes towards my minor, Metropolitan Studies. The program is so cheap that my financial aid covers all the tuition, plus three weekend trips (to Vienna, Bratislava, Berlin and Budapest.) I also go to Amsterdam to visit my friend Neri, who I know from Brooklyn. I have many adventures, including navigating the Czech infrastructure, skiing on the Czech-German border and hitchhiking for the first and only time. I meet my good friends, Sue and Anna Bain, who were in the same program. We’re still great friends to this day!

2001: Senior year at NYU. I live in a dorm on 7th street and I start student teaching at Murray Bergtaum HS, where I have a great cooperating teacher named Wayne, who is now the head of the English Dept there. I also meet my friend Sandy there, another English teacher, and a internet geek like me!  I graduate in May, find myself homeless and crash on my friend Emily’s floor in Bushwick for two months while I work for Jumpstart, Inc and look for my own apartment. I end up in a two bedroom in Ditmas Park (by coincidence, this is the same building my older sister lived in a few years prior!), with my younger sister, who is still an undergrad at The New School. The summer ends, I still don’t have a teaching job but I am tutoring for Kaplan and  substitute teaching in the South Bronx.

When 9/11 happens, I’m unemployed and home that day. Our TV sucks, and we have no clue what’s going on until my mother calls around 9:30, frantic. We turn on our TV and get a unclear picture of what’s going on downtown. Later that day, I go up to the elevated F train platform, where I can see the mushroom cloud of smoke from the burning towers. It’s surreal and I can’t wrap my head around it.

Thanks to some friend connections, I finally get a full-time teaching job right before Thanksgiving, at a high school in the South Bronx. I get off to a rocky start but it’s not so bad. I’m told by my new students the last teacher left because a student stabbed her hand with a pencil, but I’m assured that it’ll never happen to me because I’m “not a bitch like that teacher.” I guess I feel relieved? It takes a long time to get paid, and I have get an emergency check cut by the school so that I can go home for the holidays.

2002: I begin the second half of my first teaching year. It’s kind of a blur but I make it to June, and look forward to starting again in September, a bit wiser and more confident. That summer, I go to Puerto Rico for two weeks for a UFT teaching workshop at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras. We cram 6 credits worth of classes into those two weeks, and take a trip to Ponce. I meet my friend Linda at this program, who is from PR and gives me some lessons on what life is like for Puerto Ricans. My Spanish still sucks.  (For the life of me, I can’t remember what year I did this!)

I think this is also the summer that I start working for Oasis Children’s Services, a summer camp that provides summer enrichment for kids in the inner city. I meet my friend Yelena, who will be the maid of honor at my wedding 5 years later.

I return to my school that Fall, ready for my second year of teaching. In some ways, it’s easier and in other ways, it’s harder. The professional growth is never-ending and goes in many directions. I start grad school that Fall, too, studying Urban Policy Analysis at Milano Graduate School of Urban Policy Analysis and Management, at The New School.

I think I also went to Mexico with my friends Yelena and Jill this year. I get my first tattoo. Now, I think it’s stupid. Oh well!

2003: I finish up my second year of teaching, and survive. I think I go back to work for Oasis that summer? My memory is blurry on this. I start my third year of teaching that September, and continue working on my Master’s degree at night. I’m exhausted.

2004: I finish my third year of teaching, and go to Ecuador that summer with my friend Sue, her friend Gorman and his friend Holcomb. The four of us travel around, renting a truck and hitting the beach. I turn 24 while we’re there, get crazy drunk on my birthday, puke and pass out. Good times.  Holcomb and Sue hook up on this trip, and 5 years later, they get married!

I start my 4th year of teaching, and my second-to-last semester of grad school. I make the mistake of taking three classes instead of two, and nearly end up on academic probation. I’m doing things half-assed, trying to balance school and work. It sucks.

I also move from Brooklyn to Forest Hills in Queens, to live with my now-ex-boyfriend. I like living in a grown-up building with a doorman and everything.  I learn a lot about myself from living with my boyfriend. It’s painful at times.

This is also the year I discover Flickr, which will prove to be a major turning point, believe it or not.

I start my professional relationship with the New York City Writing Project.

2005: I finish up my 4th year of teaching, I take a trip to Jamaica for a week with Yelena and Jill, and I go to California to visit my teacher-blogger friend, Tamara and she informs me that my boyfriend is an asshole, which I think I already knew, deep down inside.  While in California,  I tell my boyfriend that when the lease is up, I want to move out, and probably break up.  I’d move out sooner but it’s the middle of the school year, and also, I don’t have much money (mostly because said boyfriend is a horrible mooch.)

By the end of the summer, I find an apartment in Spanish Harlem with two other girls. My sisters help me move out, and I officially break up with my boyfriend, though it takes a few tries to really separate ourselves.

I start my 5th year of teaching with a sweet commute of only 15 minutes to my school, much improved over the hour, hour and a half it used to take when I lived in Brooklyn and Queens. I try my hand at dating, get bored with it and give up.

I finish grad school in May, finally.

I start chatting with a Flickr contact, one thing leads to another, we meet in person and by  New Year’s, we’re attached at the hip.

2006: It’s an amazing year. I’m finally hitting my stride as a teacher, I have an amazing new love and I buy my first apartment.

That summer, we go to Seattle for two weeks, to hike the Wonderland Trail with his friends. My sister says if we survive this trip together, we can survive anything. In August, when we come back, we get engaged and start planning a Fall wedding for the following year.

2007: The year is a flurry of wedding planning, and teaching and Henry moving into my apartment. I have the opportunity to go to Paris with Yelena and Jill. The trip is the week before Spring Break, but I go anyway, and basically have a two week vacation in March that includes a weekend in Iceland. Very few people at work know that I’ve done this and I keep it hush-hush. It’s totally worth it!

That summer, I co-facilitate a tech workshop for teachers, with NYCWP.

We get married in October, and take a two week honeymoon in Italy. A friend has gifted us the use of her villa in Umbria, so after a few days in Rome, we rent a car and head out. We enjoy the solitude and peacefulness of the Umbrian hills, with some day trips, including a trip to Florence.

We come home to discover that we’ve given each other the best wedding gift ever– a honeymoon baby!

2008: Towards the end of my first trimester, I’m finding myself increasingly stressed out by my teaching situation. The administration at the school sucks, I’m losing my energy and feeling burned out. I want to leave and Henry okays it. With his support, I resign. I continue working as a tech consultant for NYCWP, and deliver a workshop or two.

July comes and brings with it our newest family member. Our lives are forever changed. We also start thinking about moving to Western MA.

2009: I settle into life as a SAHM, with some reservations. Alice turns a year old, hits all her milestones in due time and Henry grows increasingly dissatisfied with living in NYC and so do I. He starts looking towards Western MA.

In March, we take Alice to Austin to visit friends and attend SXSW. In June, Alice takes her first international trip, to Krakow for Sue and Holcomb’s long-awaited wedding. In September, we find out that I’m pregnant again, much to our shock and delight. In October, we celebrate our 2nd anniversary with a trip to Seattle and Vancouver to visit friends.

When we return home, Henry begins in earnest to look for a job in Western MA. As the year comes to a close, we heave a sigh of relief when he gets a job offer and we begin to plan our move for early 2010. Huzzah!

People, it has been a hell of a decade and I continued to be amazed by how much can change in such a short amount of time. Here’s to a healthy, happy new year full of adventures and dreams.

Technorati Tags: decade in review

We eat bagels every Sunday morning, so it’s only natural that “bagel” or “bay-go” would be in Alice’s vocabulary. This past Sunday, I somehow got the notion that I should make my own bagels. It might have something to do with our impending move out of New York City, and the state altogether to a place that is not known to have the real deal bagels.
An internet search turns up a great many recipes for bagels, and two of the food blogs that I read also share bagel recipes (Nosh With Me and Baking and Books). The first recipe I tried, on Sunday morning, I selected because the bagels could be made in a short time. The other recipes called for the sponge method, to be done the night before. I followed the recipe to the letter, more or less. They came out pretty good, but I wanted to try another recipe, so taking what I learned from the first recipe, I adapted the recipe from Baking and Books. This second round of bagels was better than the first, according to my sister and my husband.
Someone suggested looking at Bittman’s recipe, an idea that didn’t occur to me before I made these two batches, but no matter– one look at Bittman’s recipe, and I knew it wasn’t for me. His recipe takes 3-4 hours to create, and as usual, too meticulous for my freewheeling kitchen ways!

Bagels (Adapted from various recipes)

Makes 12 Bagels

4-6 cups of AP flour
1 tsp of Active Dry Yeast
2 C of warm water
3 Tbl of sugar
1 Tbl of vegetable oil

1. In a large bowl, combine the yeast and water. Let it sit until the yeast is dissolved and foamy, about 5-10 minutes.
2. Add the remaining ingredients and stir until combined. Dough will be shaggy and thick, and somewhat moist. Add a little more warm water if you’re having trouble getting all the flour incorporated.
3. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 8-10 minutes, until dough is smooth and stretchy.
4. Divide dough into 12 roughly equal pieces. I used a  scale to get the weight of each piece about the same. Roll each piece into a ball. Spread a little veggie oil on your hands, and roll each ball once more to coat with oil (to prevent sticking during rising). Leave dough balls on kneading surface and cover with saran wrap. Let dough rise for an hour. You can test readiness by poking the dough with your fingertip. If the impression remains, your dough is ready!
5. Now, it’s time to form the bagels themselves. Roll each ball into a rope with your palms until the rope is  long enough to wrap around your hand, with overlap between the ends. You want the overlapped ends to be on your palm side. Using your palm, roll the rope across the counter to fuse the two ends together.
6. Place the bagels on an oiled baking sheet (or use parchment/silpat), cover with saran wrap and let the dough rest for 10 minutes, or until puffy.
7. In the meantime, pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees, and bring a large pot of water to boil. (Some people like to add baking soda to the water to aid in the browning of the dough but I found that this made my bagels too pretzel-like.)
8. When the rested dough is ready, boil the bagels two or three at a time, to avoid crowding the pot. Boil on one side for a minute, then flip them over and boil the other side. Do this with a slotted spoon or  a spider.
9. Let the bagels dry on on a towel before placing them back on the baking sheet. You can also, at this point, add your flavorings (sesame seed, garlic, onion, etc). Do this while the bagels are wet.
10. When all the bagels have been boiled, place them into the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes on each side.
11. Let the bagels cool for at least ten minutes before cutting into them and putting a schmear on!

Technorati Tags: bagels

I get girl crushes from time to time but do you ever get blog crushes? There are a few blogs I’ve been obsessed with lately, because they are beautifully written portraits of lifestyles that take the chaos and the craziness of life, and make them just plain romantic, with great pictures to boot.

Soulemama
Cup of Jo
Dear Baby
Marvelous Kiddo

What are your favorite blogs to read right now?

It’s 5 am, or it was 5 am when I woke up, thanks to the stupid cat. I’m really ready to kick him out the window.

No NaNoWriMo winner badge for me! C’est La Vie! I’m not too torn up about it because like I said, I think I have a workable short story on my hands.  I’ll be submitting for feedback at some point at the iAnthology, the NWP ning set up by Kevin Hodgson from the Western Massachusetts Writing Project.

In other news, I’m starting doula training this month! I’m super excited about this even though I have lots of work to do in the next few years. I’m attending my first workshop on the 13th, in the city, and I’ve arranged to observe my own doula’s childbirth classes, to fulfill that requirement. The certification process involves a lot of reading, observation, attending a 16 hour workshop, attending births, taking a lactation/breastfeeding course and writing essays.

And yes, I’m still pursuing copyediting training in the meantime. The self-paced online course has been slow going for me, mostly because I’m not making the time. I finally realized that I need to treat it like an actual class that I’m taking, a night class, if you will. So, starting tonight, I’ll be escaping the house after dinner to do my coursework.

Our apartment is on the market, finally, but we still have lots of work to do before the place is presentable enough to take pictures for the listing. We tore up the lineoleum in the bedroom only to discover there was only plywood underneath, not hardwood like we expected/hoped. So, we’re in search of a carpet remnant (the room is only 10×9!). Once that gets installed, we can stage the bedroom, and get started on clearing out the rest of the apartment. A lot of it will go into storage, some of it will get thrown out or given away.  We’re not in any particular hurry to move but we know that the longer our apartment sits on the market, the more stale our listing will get. We have a six month contract with the broker, so we’ll see how it goes.

Winter is coming, my belly is getting bigger by the day, and I’m excited for the holidays but also for what the new year will bring. I have an anatomy scan later today but we aren’t finding out the sex this time around, so they’ll just do the usual nuchal fold check and the other measurements, nothing too exciting.  In a lot of ways, this pregnancy feels like old hat, but it’s different in that I’m chasing around a toddler. It’s getting harder and harder to carry Alice on my hip, and the littlest things wipe out my energy, like changing a diaper! (She very rarely lies still for her diaper to be changed… it takes some strength and cajoling to get the job done.)

On our way home from Albany this past Thanksgiving weekend, we stopped to visit friends who have a farm about 20 minutes outside of Albany. It’s a small farm, similar to what we have in mind for our own farm one day, so it was good for us to see it! They have tons of chickens, some goats and some pigs. I think we’ve decided to stick with goats and chickens, and growing produce because the whole pig thing seems too messy and quite frankly, in my pregnant state, the stench of the pigsty made me more than a little queasy.  We bought bagels with us, and had a nice lunch before hitting the road again. Our friends didn’t let us leave empty-handed! We came home with eggs fresh from the coop, a lamb shoulder, ground buffalo meat and a pork loin. Our freezer is happy, and soon our bellies will be, too!