When I was back in New Jersey a few weeks ago, I mentioned to my parents that I’d helped a little bit with the spinoff game for Shutter Island. (I didn’t add that my particular brand of helping had a lot to do with asking the producer about a thousand times to please please warn me if was going to be gross. Sorry about that!) They seemed pleased, perhaps because I’ve worn them down by telling them over and over that I’ve written about a game they haven’t heard about in a publication they haven’t heard about. Besides,  if you can’t tell your parents about minor successes and have them be impressed, really, what are parents for?

“Does that mean you’re in the credits with Martin Scorsese?” my dad asked.

“I’m not entirely sure who that is.” (Every day with me is like an adventure in pop culture.)

“The director of The Godfather!” my dad said. “Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

“I saw that!” I said, “It was kind of gross.”

Edit: My old roommate Chris just pointed out that Scorsese is not actually the director of The Godfather, which just proves that nobody reads the credits anyway.

PS: If you would like to play the game, you can download the free trial or buy the game here.

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Shutter Island

I’m kind of jealous that with all the time I’ve spent waiting at Newark Airport (For Christmas 2006, I flew in on AirIndia, Stick came in on British Airways and we both lost our luggage), I’ve never seen a singalong.

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Newark Airport Singalong

What I meant to say was, thanks for putting up with my moody high school crap, for letting me hang out in your classroom when I really should have been in gym doing… um… actually I’m not entirely sure what one does in gym since I never went, for pretending you had no idea who built a dummy DOS with a fake reformatting option and left it running on other peoples’ machines, thanks for turning me on to frustration and ecstasy of programming, I never did much with my Pascal skills but it was excellent practice for life in China.

Somehow what came out was a mutual rant about school politics, the joys of students who learn something in your class, and frustrations of precious-snowflake parents. This is because an announcement was made over the PA that there would soon be a fire drill, and that all students were expected to leave quickly and quietly, and wait at designated areas until they returned to class. There was to be no stopping at lockers to get coats, although it’s a planned drill, in November in New Jersey, and no leaving school property, even though students will be sent halfway to their cars. There would be undefined Dire Consequences for rule-breakers. And students must not dawdle on the way back to shortened pre-holiday classes since that would cut into their academic time.  Long winded announcements, it seems, must just be part of the learning process.  Seriously, how can you talk about life-altering influences that made me want to teach English when you have such school admin stupidity in front of you?

We talked for a while, catching up, until the alarm went off. I thought that the incessant clanging would be a good cue to go, so we said goodbye and I made my way through straggling students towards my car. I was feeling like a new stage of my life was opening, since I’d just talked to a former teacher as an equal. And he said I’d grown up!

On my way out, one of the school security guards tried to prevent me leaving school grounds, and I had to explain that I was actually an unauthorized trespasser, and not a wayward student. Perhaps I’m not as mature as I’d hoped.

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Standard Deviations

I came across this book when I was home in New Jersey cleaning out my old room. (Yeah, my mom said something about how I haven’t lived there in ten years and she’d really like a guest room and that piles of paperbacks are not her ideal way to decorate that guest room.) It’s a collection of scripts for short plays, set in all different countries, and I think I read it about a thousand times, not to mention putting on most of the plays with kids in my neighborhood.

Are you surprised that I liked the Chinese story best?  The story about a wise old Chinese man and his sons and daughters-in-law is probably about as Chinese as a kung fu movie, but this is one of the stories that first sparked my interest in China. China just seemed so exotic and romantic.

(Is it just me, or does it look like her lantern says “wen“? 文? But I think it’s supposed to say woman not language.)

I was sad when I got to China and found that instead of names like Spring Blossom and Precious Jade and so forth, girls all called each other Sis.

Also no one walked around in layered silk gowns and Manchu hairpieces. Another disappointment.

But on the plus side, no on ever sent me out to find wind and fire wrapped in paper before I could come home again.

My Flickr set of more photos from this book.

I came across this one in my room as well, which is doubly hilarious. First, it is unbelievably amusing to me that I was interested in authentic Chinese food pre-China, and then when I got to China, I spent months trying to hide my look of disgust and politely insist I was already full.

Second, because the bag of rice is clearly labeled “Beijing” in Chinese.

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Scenes From Imaginary China

PS I’m in New Jersey this week, I have an alibi!

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Cary Is Now Less Awesome

PK is a new role for me, but teaching kids isn’t. Today I was helping the kids at camp with their art projects, which mostly means keeping glue away from clothing and breaking up disputes over the purple marker, when a little boy called me over to help him with the picture he was making.

“Miss Meg!” he asked, sure that I would be able to help him, “How do you spell alien anti-gravity controller?”

Edit 8/16: My dad asked me if this post was true, and I assured him that it was, but in the interest of complete factual accuracy, I should point out that the art project actually says alien-controlled gravity controller.

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Summer Camp

I recently learned that the city of Cary, NC was originally named Bradford’s Ordinary, which seems to disprove Professor Harris’s theory. Ordinary is just too apt. I often feel like life here is generic, flavorless American, a landscape of interchangeable strips malls and industrial parks and the highways leading there, the lifestyle I wanted to escape by moving to China.

But summer has arrived, unlike any summer I’ve seen, with long, lingering twilights. The light fades so slowly I only realize it’s nighttime by the appearance of lightning bugs.

Reading about North Carolina’s extra-long growing season doesn’t describe the gardens here, bursting with larger versions of familiar flowers of Massachussetts and New Jersey. In patches between concrete convenience, I find wild vines with glossy green leaves and delicate white Southern flowers, or huge blossoms with almost tropical petals and sweet, heavy scent.  Even our balcony basil and mint are touched with the wild growth here.

Evenings bring lightning flashes on the horizon from distant thunderstorms. Summer storms arrive, they come with the intensity and suddenness of the Kate Chopin story, a golden sunny day turning to wind-tossed trees and heavy, fat raindrops in minutes, and clearing just as quickly.

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Bradford’s Ordinary

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Southern

CLIFTON — Two “modern day Ninjas” calling themselves Shinobi Warriors on a quest to rid the area of drug users and drug dealers have been put out of business by police.

On Wednesday at 2:35 a.m. police officers approached a car parked in the left lane of Route 46 east and found two Clifton men dressed in black claiming to be Ninjas. The men were wearing tactical vests and armed with knives in sheaths at their waists along with Ninja throwing knives, Chinese throwing stars, four-pointed tacks, swords, bows and arrows and nunchucks, said detective Capt. Robert Rowan.

The two men, Jesse Trojaniak, 19, and Tadieusz Tertkiewicz, 20, told police they were “modern day Ninjas” also called Shinobi Warriors on their way to deliver warning letters to known drug dealers and drug users to stop their “impure” activities. They told police they planned to leave the letters on the front doors of these individuals they had singled out.

Apparently these kids took the war on drugs literally.

Via “Clifton Police arrest Ninjas” in the Clifton Journal, thanks to Pandapassport‘s recent tweet for tipping me off to the story in the first place.

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New Jersey Ninjas

My license is both expired and out-of-state, which isn’t exactly the ideal state of things, so I didn’t expect the first person who picked up the phone at the Department of Motor Vehicles to know what I needed. But after speaking to several people who had no idea what I’d need to do and weren’t particularly inclined to find out, I started to wonder if everyone else times their international travel with their license expiration. The phone recording told me several times that they are experiencing heavy call volume, aren’t any of those folks calling about an expired license? Is it one of those things that everyone else gets right, and only I do wrong?

It was looking more and more like the only way to find out what I’d need to do was to gather all the paperwork I might need, and go down to the DMV in person, where I couldn’t be put on hold.  I called my dad.

“Dad? Are you busy?”

“I’m keeping my congregation from throwing each other to the lions right now,” (Note: This is not exactly word-for-word what he said. I think he said something less about lions and more about being in a meeting) “Do you need something?”

“Can you take me to the DMV tomorrow* to get my license renewed? And stand around in lines all day to see unhelpful people?”

“Ok. I’ll even wear my clerical collar, maybe we won’t get anyone really nasty.”

I knew being the pastor’s daughter was eventually going to work out for me!

*Before we left, though, I found out that I need to have my driving records mailed from Massachusetts, which is a bit of a pain but at least it’s an answer. And then I need to present my records, my 6 forms of ID and my self at the DMV, so I’m still scheduled for a day waiting in line.

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The Pastor’s Daughter