I have fifteen minutes before I have to be back at work, so I thought I'd try and update my blog real quick before dashing off to the next thing.
One of my professors has offered to help me in my newest project: Understanding Southern Culture in a far more in-depth way than I ever thought necessary. Reason: I am dating a guy from Kentucky. Which has been fun, however my Prof pointed out some areas that I was simply NOT understanding were cultural differences. It helped to talk with him. But there's lots of books on survival guides for Americans overseas... I don't know if there's any for a girl who grew up West of the Mississippi for socializing/thriving in The South. Oh well. We'll see. Maybe at some point I'll write one... :-) But at any rate this new relationship has been really fun, as well as educational for all concerned :-)
IN other news: I'm stuck on the worksheets for Theology 3. I guess Senioritis has kicked in, because I have never been so naturally, verbally succinct in my entire life: I was given 3-5 pages to fill on three different theological topics, and on two of them I struggled to fill just ONE page and on the third one I can't get past the first paragraph! This is not good...
It doesn't help that a lot of my friends are graduated or have moved into different stages/areas of life. They call with GREAT ideas of stuff to do on my days off, but then I have to be the horrible responsible person and remind them that while technically I don't have anything on the schedule, I already have a full homework load. *sigh*
I'm still trying to figure out this internship for my Missions major. My car is currently fixed and running well, so that has simplified things. Now its just a matter of coordinating between various very busy people undergoing lots of transition and (dare I say it) some disorganization (myself included) and getting stuff in written form and turned into the right offices, as well as plugged into something resembling a schedule. (are Missionaries allowed to have such things? I feel like a schedule should be against the rules somehow... even if it is ministry in North America...)
And then there are times where I rebelliously put my phone on silent, slam shut the textbooks, change into shorts and sneakers and sneak outside and find a quiet corner on campus and stare up at the stars and wish I could just sit and let my mind wander for another month.
However, summer break has ended, and thinking can no longer wander all over history and fantasy and reality but stay solely on theology and pragmatic things... at least until I get all the scheduling worked out.
However, scheduling time for 'thinking of nothing in particular' seems a little weird...
That's all for now. :-)
~Princess Ouch~
Living day to day trying to keep Christ as the focus
Showing posts with label South. Show all posts
Showing posts with label South. Show all posts
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Accents and prejudice, thoughts thereof
"So when did you realize that I was smart?"
The question took me completely off guard. What? I don't usually assume people are idiots, although I have been informed I would be a lot happier with life if I did that.
"Was it when I told you I graduated Summa Cum Laude, or did you manage to figure it out before then?"
"Oh, I had figured it out right after I met you."
"Really?" My friend seemed genuinely surprised. "How'd you figure that?"
"Um," I had to snigger at that point, "I'm a psychologist's kid. I know what signs of intelligance to look for."
"Such as?"
The conversation continued but it struck me as odd that it was assumed that I would automatically label someone as having a low intelligence before discovering more about them.
The reason this person assumed this was because of the accent with which this person spoke. It was a decidedly Appalachian accent.
Now, I have traveled to a few different countries and met people from lots of different walks in life. And yet I have never ever encountered such a question from any of the various people groups I've interacted with. Now, granted, some were less expressive and verbose as others. I was warned by my Hungarian host brother to be CAREFUL when I spoke Romanian, as the Romanians would make fun of a person if the correct pronounciation wasn't used. I detected an undercurrent of bad experience in history in that statement, coupled with some other revealing reminiscences at other times. Transylvania has a rather chaotic history with the Romanians and Hungarians, who both claim rights to that tract of land, and Language is one way people hone in on differences.
I did experience something similar when I was talking with two African American classmates. They were comparing notes on inner-city missions, and I asked one if a question about a Halloween ministry. They had planned one, but had to cancel. My other friend spoke up and explained that his church had a ministry and what they were doing.
"oh! I thought you two went to the same church!" Now, the reason why I thought that was not because they were both African Americans, but because I had seen them act very familiar with each other and talk about ministries that seemed so similar that I thought it was the same one. They both laughed and said, NO, they went to separate churches. Just because they were both black (their words, not mine) I shouldn't think they did EVERYTHING together. They were individuals too.
"I didn't think you were part of the same church because you were both black, I thought it was because I've heard you talking about your ministries and thought it was the same one."
They let it go but I'm not sure if they believed me or not.
This part of the world seems to have several layers to the social life. I was thinking about it today as I hung out with a dear friend of mine and her family. The father is of british descent although very much American, and the mother is originally from the Philippines, but grew up in California. Their daughter is a computer and ancient linguistic whiz who is currently undergoing the process of applying for Wycliffe Bible translators. They are a very interesting family and have blessed my socks off since I arrived in college. Introducing me to amazing things such as Stargate Atlantis and NCIS, and the Chicago deep-dish pizza resturaunt. :-)
However, the mom has a little bit of a fix when trying to socialize here. She has forgotten most if not all her Tagalog, yet looks very filipino. So she doesn't quite fit in with the other filipinos here in town. However, at some churches she will be avoided because she is obviously 'different.' People will say hi to her husband and daughter, but not so much to her.
I understand that the South tends to cling to their legendary 'genteelity' and I've heard the phrase "The South will rise again!" in half jest. One girl confessed to me that she had been fairly certain that she and I wouldn't be friends, as she was sure that I was a 'yank' and her 'people' were most decidedly from south of the Mason-Dixon line. But once she discovered that, while I was born on the East coast, I grew up in the West, which was far better than the North, and we could therefore be friends.
Now, while there is the assuing element of humor in these discussions, the underlying tone piques my interest.
I have yet another friend here at school who is from Nigeria. I had a few Nigerian friends at the International Church I went to in Romania, and really appreciated their friendship. They were warm and jovial and had intriguing perspectives on theology and doctrine. So I talked with this new student for a little during the class break that day and the next, and whenever I saw him was sure to say hi and ask how he was doing. I had discovered that he had a wife and two kids back and Nigeria, and asked him about them when I saw him.
A few months later I saw him again and was introducing him to a new friend of mine I was hanging out with who had just returned from the mission field and just started school. My Nigerian friend shook the new acquaintance's hand vigorously and exclaimed,
"You will really like this girl. When I first came here, she made me feel SOOO welcome! She is kind and hospitible. You are really lucky to be her friend."
Hunh? Seriously? By simply saying, 'hey, how ya doin? How's the wife and kids?'
Yet when I think of it, the only other people I ever see engaged in conversation are the other Africans he works with, or the family I mentioned earlier with the Filipino mom.
What is predjudice? When I think of it, my first thought is Jim Crow laws and lynchings as depicted in Huck Finn. However, after a conversation with a friend who just joined ROTC and is currently living in Detroit, I realize more deeply that prejudice often takes far more subtler forms.
Of course it is found all over the world, in every culture and region. Yet the type I've encountered here is different from the one up North.
My parents have been in the North for just a few years shy of a decade, and I must say that I am not a fan of the neighborhood full of Norse descendants. Their prejudice is not a vibrant, easily pin-pointed type. Its masked in smiles, yet reveals itself through the lack of interaction that people group engages in with people from outside their immediate family circle. There may be ties of allegience to those outside their immediate family, but then again they may take advantage of their close kin to come out on top in a business deal, leaving their relatives in the dust. Yet when disaster strikes a church member, the whole congregation rallies together to make heroic, unexpected moves of generosity and help. Once they deem the crisis over, however, they delve back into their hobbit holes and will make great exhultations and commotions about the need to get together and socialize, and then do nothing to follow through with their promises and assurances of deep lasting friendship.
In the South, it is a little more tangent. The condescention is not overt, yet still there. The friend mentioned at the very beginning of the post had experienced the constant need to either prove intelligence despite accent or just deal with the assumtions from others that he didnt have a lot between his ears.
I have no idea what to do with all these observations. I sometimes feel a little like Esther depicted in One Night With The King; 'Are you crazy? This is not just you against (insert opposing character's name), this is you against the protocol! This is you against an Empire! Why do you think you, one person, is going to change centuries of tradition?!"
In Romania it seemed to my young mind rather easy. Targeted people group gets saved, GOd sactifies them out of their small-mind-ed-ness. Of course it was far more complicated than that, but to sum up, there it is.
Yet this is amongst fellow Believers; not only that, but Believers who are loudly proclaiming their desire to serve the Lord. This is supposed to be the 'Cream of the Crop' as it were. I am baffled how they think they are going to go overseas as missionaries when they don't even greet the foreigners in their midst.
I get a taste of it on a far smaller scale (like microscopically smaller) when I work in food service on campus. I wear the black apron and cap, I therefore am entitled to being subjugated to your bad attitude towards the menu and lack of your preferences therein. They are perfectly fine, sweet, and considerate when I'm not in uniform. However get me in black and its all over with the formalities. This is not to say that every student who hops through our doors is awful, but there are a few times when I really wish I could dispense with the customer service and give them a good, western, frank-to-a-fault piece of my mind. All backed up with Scripture and said with the gentility of a lady and Christian sister, of course. Yet scathing none the less.
Now, this just comes with the territory of working in food service, I realize. However, I do apply it to my argument in that as a food server I am no longer capable of socializing in the normal way because I'm at work. I can offer a quick hello and get a nutshell-version of whatever updates they have to offer, but can't get the whole heart-to-heart talk. THerefore, abnormality is suddenly put into place and different dynamics arrive on the scene.
Now, this helps me understand a little better the dynamics put into play with my filipino and appalachian friend. Differences are detected, and the proper social protocols are no longer able to function at the black-and-white, easily-applied pace they were previously able to in the past.
I suppose it does take a certain kind of person who hops from one social circle to another and has a myriad of types of friends. Just like it takes a certain kind of person to globe-trot, containing everything necessary for existance in a few small bags, if not one.
However, if one is going to engage in ministry, one must realize that ministry is not done to people who are fine and comfortable for one to engage with. Sick people don't need doctors. Religion is not an opiate of masses (at least, the Christian one isn't), its intended to be physical therapy until we get to the other side. Therapists, of any sort, get to deal with the worst of their particular brand and help them become better. If they are blinded with indignation that they are not just peachy keen like the therapist, then how can they help them to get better?
I've run into trouble with these various friends I describe, because my attitude is, "I'm quirky in my own ways, you are quirky in your own ways. Lets make our quirkyness compatible, be friends, and have fun." However, I glaze over the years and years of history and hurt that has assimilated behind various neuoncis of culture, and unintentionally allude to something that brings insult.
The balancing act I'm trying to learn is how to encourage the barriers to drop to let forgiveness and healing and new opportunities to flood in; yet be sensitive to the fact that those barriers are there, and for good reason.
So all that to say. My life as a anthropological, psychological, and sociological observer continues to be interesting.
I hope none of this was communicated in an offensive way; they are merely observations that I'm externalizing for my own examination, curious if anyone has any feedback. If they come across as excessively emphatic or anything, its because I am actually pretty tired from traveling and reacquanting myself with old friends while preparing for a J-term next week. And I'm realizing that, for some reason, the one-hour time difference between here and my parent's is effecting my sleep schedule considerably. I'm not having any trouble getting up, just going to sleep.
But, all that to say, if you encounter someone with a unique accent, don't assume they are dumb. If you have a unique accent, don't assume that I assume you are dumb. At least, any dumber than I am. 'Cause if you think about it, we're all dumb; some more than others and with splashes of creativity and uniqueness in how the dumbness manifests itself. But dumb nonetheless. ;-)
~Princess Ouch~
The question took me completely off guard. What? I don't usually assume people are idiots, although I have been informed I would be a lot happier with life if I did that.
"Was it when I told you I graduated Summa Cum Laude, or did you manage to figure it out before then?"
"Oh, I had figured it out right after I met you."
"Really?" My friend seemed genuinely surprised. "How'd you figure that?"
"Um," I had to snigger at that point, "I'm a psychologist's kid. I know what signs of intelligance to look for."
"Such as?"
The conversation continued but it struck me as odd that it was assumed that I would automatically label someone as having a low intelligence before discovering more about them.
The reason this person assumed this was because of the accent with which this person spoke. It was a decidedly Appalachian accent.
Now, I have traveled to a few different countries and met people from lots of different walks in life. And yet I have never ever encountered such a question from any of the various people groups I've interacted with. Now, granted, some were less expressive and verbose as others. I was warned by my Hungarian host brother to be CAREFUL when I spoke Romanian, as the Romanians would make fun of a person if the correct pronounciation wasn't used. I detected an undercurrent of bad experience in history in that statement, coupled with some other revealing reminiscences at other times. Transylvania has a rather chaotic history with the Romanians and Hungarians, who both claim rights to that tract of land, and Language is one way people hone in on differences.
I did experience something similar when I was talking with two African American classmates. They were comparing notes on inner-city missions, and I asked one if a question about a Halloween ministry. They had planned one, but had to cancel. My other friend spoke up and explained that his church had a ministry and what they were doing.
"oh! I thought you two went to the same church!" Now, the reason why I thought that was not because they were both African Americans, but because I had seen them act very familiar with each other and talk about ministries that seemed so similar that I thought it was the same one. They both laughed and said, NO, they went to separate churches. Just because they were both black (their words, not mine) I shouldn't think they did EVERYTHING together. They were individuals too.
"I didn't think you were part of the same church because you were both black, I thought it was because I've heard you talking about your ministries and thought it was the same one."
They let it go but I'm not sure if they believed me or not.
This part of the world seems to have several layers to the social life. I was thinking about it today as I hung out with a dear friend of mine and her family. The father is of british descent although very much American, and the mother is originally from the Philippines, but grew up in California. Their daughter is a computer and ancient linguistic whiz who is currently undergoing the process of applying for Wycliffe Bible translators. They are a very interesting family and have blessed my socks off since I arrived in college. Introducing me to amazing things such as Stargate Atlantis and NCIS, and the Chicago deep-dish pizza resturaunt. :-)
However, the mom has a little bit of a fix when trying to socialize here. She has forgotten most if not all her Tagalog, yet looks very filipino. So she doesn't quite fit in with the other filipinos here in town. However, at some churches she will be avoided because she is obviously 'different.' People will say hi to her husband and daughter, but not so much to her.
I understand that the South tends to cling to their legendary 'genteelity' and I've heard the phrase "The South will rise again!" in half jest. One girl confessed to me that she had been fairly certain that she and I wouldn't be friends, as she was sure that I was a 'yank' and her 'people' were most decidedly from south of the Mason-Dixon line. But once she discovered that, while I was born on the East coast, I grew up in the West, which was far better than the North, and we could therefore be friends.
Now, while there is the assuing element of humor in these discussions, the underlying tone piques my interest.
I have yet another friend here at school who is from Nigeria. I had a few Nigerian friends at the International Church I went to in Romania, and really appreciated their friendship. They were warm and jovial and had intriguing perspectives on theology and doctrine. So I talked with this new student for a little during the class break that day and the next, and whenever I saw him was sure to say hi and ask how he was doing. I had discovered that he had a wife and two kids back and Nigeria, and asked him about them when I saw him.
A few months later I saw him again and was introducing him to a new friend of mine I was hanging out with who had just returned from the mission field and just started school. My Nigerian friend shook the new acquaintance's hand vigorously and exclaimed,
"You will really like this girl. When I first came here, she made me feel SOOO welcome! She is kind and hospitible. You are really lucky to be her friend."
Hunh? Seriously? By simply saying, 'hey, how ya doin? How's the wife and kids?'
Yet when I think of it, the only other people I ever see engaged in conversation are the other Africans he works with, or the family I mentioned earlier with the Filipino mom.
What is predjudice? When I think of it, my first thought is Jim Crow laws and lynchings as depicted in Huck Finn. However, after a conversation with a friend who just joined ROTC and is currently living in Detroit, I realize more deeply that prejudice often takes far more subtler forms.
Of course it is found all over the world, in every culture and region. Yet the type I've encountered here is different from the one up North.
My parents have been in the North for just a few years shy of a decade, and I must say that I am not a fan of the neighborhood full of Norse descendants. Their prejudice is not a vibrant, easily pin-pointed type. Its masked in smiles, yet reveals itself through the lack of interaction that people group engages in with people from outside their immediate family circle. There may be ties of allegience to those outside their immediate family, but then again they may take advantage of their close kin to come out on top in a business deal, leaving their relatives in the dust. Yet when disaster strikes a church member, the whole congregation rallies together to make heroic, unexpected moves of generosity and help. Once they deem the crisis over, however, they delve back into their hobbit holes and will make great exhultations and commotions about the need to get together and socialize, and then do nothing to follow through with their promises and assurances of deep lasting friendship.
In the South, it is a little more tangent. The condescention is not overt, yet still there. The friend mentioned at the very beginning of the post had experienced the constant need to either prove intelligence despite accent or just deal with the assumtions from others that he didnt have a lot between his ears.
I have no idea what to do with all these observations. I sometimes feel a little like Esther depicted in One Night With The King; 'Are you crazy? This is not just you against (insert opposing character's name), this is you against the protocol! This is you against an Empire! Why do you think you, one person, is going to change centuries of tradition?!"
In Romania it seemed to my young mind rather easy. Targeted people group gets saved, GOd sactifies them out of their small-mind-ed-ness. Of course it was far more complicated than that, but to sum up, there it is.
Yet this is amongst fellow Believers; not only that, but Believers who are loudly proclaiming their desire to serve the Lord. This is supposed to be the 'Cream of the Crop' as it were. I am baffled how they think they are going to go overseas as missionaries when they don't even greet the foreigners in their midst.
I get a taste of it on a far smaller scale (like microscopically smaller) when I work in food service on campus. I wear the black apron and cap, I therefore am entitled to being subjugated to your bad attitude towards the menu and lack of your preferences therein. They are perfectly fine, sweet, and considerate when I'm not in uniform. However get me in black and its all over with the formalities. This is not to say that every student who hops through our doors is awful, but there are a few times when I really wish I could dispense with the customer service and give them a good, western, frank-to-a-fault piece of my mind. All backed up with Scripture and said with the gentility of a lady and Christian sister, of course. Yet scathing none the less.
Now, this just comes with the territory of working in food service, I realize. However, I do apply it to my argument in that as a food server I am no longer capable of socializing in the normal way because I'm at work. I can offer a quick hello and get a nutshell-version of whatever updates they have to offer, but can't get the whole heart-to-heart talk. THerefore, abnormality is suddenly put into place and different dynamics arrive on the scene.
Now, this helps me understand a little better the dynamics put into play with my filipino and appalachian friend. Differences are detected, and the proper social protocols are no longer able to function at the black-and-white, easily-applied pace they were previously able to in the past.
I suppose it does take a certain kind of person who hops from one social circle to another and has a myriad of types of friends. Just like it takes a certain kind of person to globe-trot, containing everything necessary for existance in a few small bags, if not one.
However, if one is going to engage in ministry, one must realize that ministry is not done to people who are fine and comfortable for one to engage with. Sick people don't need doctors. Religion is not an opiate of masses (at least, the Christian one isn't), its intended to be physical therapy until we get to the other side. Therapists, of any sort, get to deal with the worst of their particular brand and help them become better. If they are blinded with indignation that they are not just peachy keen like the therapist, then how can they help them to get better?
I've run into trouble with these various friends I describe, because my attitude is, "I'm quirky in my own ways, you are quirky in your own ways. Lets make our quirkyness compatible, be friends, and have fun." However, I glaze over the years and years of history and hurt that has assimilated behind various neuoncis of culture, and unintentionally allude to something that brings insult.
The balancing act I'm trying to learn is how to encourage the barriers to drop to let forgiveness and healing and new opportunities to flood in; yet be sensitive to the fact that those barriers are there, and for good reason.
So all that to say. My life as a anthropological, psychological, and sociological observer continues to be interesting.
I hope none of this was communicated in an offensive way; they are merely observations that I'm externalizing for my own examination, curious if anyone has any feedback. If they come across as excessively emphatic or anything, its because I am actually pretty tired from traveling and reacquanting myself with old friends while preparing for a J-term next week. And I'm realizing that, for some reason, the one-hour time difference between here and my parent's is effecting my sleep schedule considerably. I'm not having any trouble getting up, just going to sleep.
But, all that to say, if you encounter someone with a unique accent, don't assume they are dumb. If you have a unique accent, don't assume that I assume you are dumb. At least, any dumber than I am. 'Cause if you think about it, we're all dumb; some more than others and with splashes of creativity and uniqueness in how the dumbness manifests itself. But dumb nonetheless. ;-)
~Princess Ouch~
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Sunday
This last Sunday my friend Kristi invited me to go to Church with her. She's been after me to visit this church for over a month now, and finally it worked out for me to go. Neither of us have cars (or at least legally drivable cars yet) so her friend Adam said he would pick us up. I had no idea that the Adam was THE Adam I've had class with for the last two semesters and we were both surprised when he pulled up to discover that we semi-knew each other already.
The church was nestled in the heart of 'Kentucky backwoods' and we drove through miles of rolling hills just starting to become green. Acres of picket fences lined the fields that weren't covered by scraggly stands of trees, and old Southern style farmhouses were dotted here and there. They were far different from the farmhouses in the upper Midwest where my parents are. Instead of little boxes with a welcoming porch with steps leading up to it, and very pointy roofs to shed the heavy snows in the winter times these were little boxes with a porch ground level with whitewashed pillars leading up to the roof on the second-story. I'm not really sure what it is with the Southerners and their pillars, but they seem to be the preferred style of decor on buildings of any significance. Maybe its kind of like sweet tea: if you are native, you completely understand. If you are foreign, ya just never quite get it, and still rebel and go back to taking your tea HOT with sugar and, gasp of gasps, creamer or milk in it.
Anyway. Back to my poetic description of the scenery I drank in as we sped along. (We made it rather early, and the chauffeur WAS a fellow, single, male college student, which makes me think we weren't going strictly the speed limit. But hey, five mile over rule, right?) It was surprising to me how much I felt encouraged by watching cows grazing while their calves frolicked beside them and saw homesteads with the typical assortment of acreage maintaining equipment and odd junk that is usually collected by country homes. If nothing else, the visit was worth the ride.
We soon were weaving up and down and around hills with young woods and little "cow-towns'' with old trucks and rusty cars. Ahhh... refreshing. Nice cars are nice, and although I am quite capable of thriving in more elite circles, I always feel more at home and relaxed amongst grass-root (or 'peasant' if going with european terms) mid-to-lower middle class settings. I don't think my Hungarian host mom every quite understood why on earth I took such joy in what she called her 'primitive' home. (to her joy the house has been remodeled with modern appliances. I'm happy for her, but miss the old corn-cob burning stoves)
The church service was refreshing as well. Kristi taught Sunday-school for kids, and so I went to the Women's Sunday school by myself. I was the youngest by far there, but felt put at ease at once as they all jumped up and gave me hugs and showed me where the coffee was and asked me about myself. While I definitely respect my elders, there was no condescension amongst these ladies and I felt as at home with them as I used to when visiting with the mom's of the ladies in the Homeschool groups my mom ran.
We had a time of prayer requests and I shared some things that was going on in my life after some hesitation. They were sympathetic but quick to point out all the ways in which God's hand was being seen and referenced many Scriptural Truths that I knew but still needed reminded of.
There was no judgment, only a desire to encourage and build up in the faith.
Perhaps I am painting a rather perfectionist picture of my day. Of course it wasn't perfect, but it was incredibly encouraging.
The service was in a style of worship similar to that which I had grown up with. At the end of which Adam, Kristi and I were invited to one of the homes of the ladies in the Sunday school I attended for lunch. So after Adam finished helping to break down the church (they met in a high-school building and had to put everything away after each service on Sundays) Kristi and I made our way towards Adam's car. Two kids were waiting for us, a little girl and boy. The girl was whistling at the top of her lungs.
"Hey bird! Pipe down, will ya?" Adam yelled at her.
"Shut up!" she retorted.
Kristi and I exchanged glances. The next ten minutes was spent watching Adam and the two kids move stuff from his backseat into his car and exchange a volley of insults that stemmed from a long history of familial affection. Kristi whispered to me that this family had 'adopted' Adam into their hearts and the kids saw him as their big brother.
I hoped and maybe even prayed that the home we were going to wasn't a very fancy one, full of matching decorations and coffee-toned paint on the walls that all coordinated with the dishware. Silly of me perhaps, but I was enjoying the country feel of things. To my great delight, we pulled up to a little cottage/farmhouse that was obviously well loved and being renovated by the owners over a period of years. A wooden picket fence surrounded the backyard and a goldfish pond and fountain was sectioned off by the fence in a little cloistered area between the house and the garage (both of which looked to be about 80 years old). To further my joy, the lady of the house loved gardens, and crocuses and other flowering plants were peeping up through the mud. We walked into the house to a living room with mis-matched furniture -just what I was used to - and Kristi and I made our way into the kitchen. It was painted dark red with white cabinets, and hand-made wooden shelves were tucked here and there to hold Pampered Chef apparatus. I wanted to laugh with joy.
We were fed grilled pork chops, biscuits, baked and grilled potatoes, canned green beans, and our choice of an assortment of soda, sweet tea, juice, or water.
The drive back to campus was very quiet, as we had all eaten our fill and were all struggling to stay awake. Adam turned on some upbeat jazz music.
That evening I made some chicken-vegetable soup and shared it with my friends the Tant family. Aaron is at Seminary and his wife Lisa is expecting their second child, and little Eli has just entered the "Terrible Two" stage. They've been struggling financially, and since my morning was so blessed I decided to bless them with dinner. All I had was soup and laughter at their retelling of how they started dating interrupted sporadically with scolding little Eli who thought that everyone else's food looked better than his own, and kept getting down from his seat to go find something tucked away in different corners that weren't supposed to be excavated by little fingers. But they appreciated it and I appreciated them as well.
It was a nice breather because this week has been full of catering events, which I love working, but always finish exhausted. Yesterday Andrei and I were behind while setting up, and somehow an entire table ended up without napkins at any of the place settings. Not just paper napkins, the snazy cloth napkins specially folded elegantly. After we opened the doors and five people nicely informed us of the napkin-lack, I told Andrei I'd get the napkins. That involved running down three floors of stairs at the hotel, across a parking lot, through the cafeteria, into the kitchen - which was full of two flustered chefs who were behind on things themselves - into the back where the linens were, grabbing the napkins, dashing back through the cafeteria, almost crashing into a poor student simply trying to pay for his meal, back across the parking lot up the three flights of stairs and almost running into Andrei who wondered if I had gotten the sodium-free meal for one guest on a special diet for health reasons. Whew. Dashing back down across and through to learn from the one flustered-chef that the other flustered-chef had just left with the meal while I was busy dashing about.
I decided to walk slowly back to the catering event and let my sweat dry before I started serving sweet tea.
Speaking of which, I must go get ready to work my second shift of the day in said cafeteria. *sigh* My pocket-book is glad for so many extra hours. However my room mate wants me to work the 6 AM event on Saturday (which means up at 5 am again) and I already work 11-2:30 on Saturday... I pulled a 6am-2:30 pm last Saturday... not sure I want to do it again this weekend.... We'll see.
~Princess Ouch~
The church was nestled in the heart of 'Kentucky backwoods' and we drove through miles of rolling hills just starting to become green. Acres of picket fences lined the fields that weren't covered by scraggly stands of trees, and old Southern style farmhouses were dotted here and there. They were far different from the farmhouses in the upper Midwest where my parents are. Instead of little boxes with a welcoming porch with steps leading up to it, and very pointy roofs to shed the heavy snows in the winter times these were little boxes with a porch ground level with whitewashed pillars leading up to the roof on the second-story. I'm not really sure what it is with the Southerners and their pillars, but they seem to be the preferred style of decor on buildings of any significance. Maybe its kind of like sweet tea: if you are native, you completely understand. If you are foreign, ya just never quite get it, and still rebel and go back to taking your tea HOT with sugar and, gasp of gasps, creamer or milk in it.
Anyway. Back to my poetic description of the scenery I drank in as we sped along. (We made it rather early, and the chauffeur WAS a fellow, single, male college student, which makes me think we weren't going strictly the speed limit. But hey, five mile over rule, right?) It was surprising to me how much I felt encouraged by watching cows grazing while their calves frolicked beside them and saw homesteads with the typical assortment of acreage maintaining equipment and odd junk that is usually collected by country homes. If nothing else, the visit was worth the ride.
We soon were weaving up and down and around hills with young woods and little "cow-towns'' with old trucks and rusty cars. Ahhh... refreshing. Nice cars are nice, and although I am quite capable of thriving in more elite circles, I always feel more at home and relaxed amongst grass-root (or 'peasant' if going with european terms) mid-to-lower middle class settings. I don't think my Hungarian host mom every quite understood why on earth I took such joy in what she called her 'primitive' home. (to her joy the house has been remodeled with modern appliances. I'm happy for her, but miss the old corn-cob burning stoves)
The church service was refreshing as well. Kristi taught Sunday-school for kids, and so I went to the Women's Sunday school by myself. I was the youngest by far there, but felt put at ease at once as they all jumped up and gave me hugs and showed me where the coffee was and asked me about myself. While I definitely respect my elders, there was no condescension amongst these ladies and I felt as at home with them as I used to when visiting with the mom's of the ladies in the Homeschool groups my mom ran.
We had a time of prayer requests and I shared some things that was going on in my life after some hesitation. They were sympathetic but quick to point out all the ways in which God's hand was being seen and referenced many Scriptural Truths that I knew but still needed reminded of.
There was no judgment, only a desire to encourage and build up in the faith.
Perhaps I am painting a rather perfectionist picture of my day. Of course it wasn't perfect, but it was incredibly encouraging.
The service was in a style of worship similar to that which I had grown up with. At the end of which Adam, Kristi and I were invited to one of the homes of the ladies in the Sunday school I attended for lunch. So after Adam finished helping to break down the church (they met in a high-school building and had to put everything away after each service on Sundays) Kristi and I made our way towards Adam's car. Two kids were waiting for us, a little girl and boy. The girl was whistling at the top of her lungs.
"Hey bird! Pipe down, will ya?" Adam yelled at her.
"Shut up!" she retorted.
Kristi and I exchanged glances. The next ten minutes was spent watching Adam and the two kids move stuff from his backseat into his car and exchange a volley of insults that stemmed from a long history of familial affection. Kristi whispered to me that this family had 'adopted' Adam into their hearts and the kids saw him as their big brother.
I hoped and maybe even prayed that the home we were going to wasn't a very fancy one, full of matching decorations and coffee-toned paint on the walls that all coordinated with the dishware. Silly of me perhaps, but I was enjoying the country feel of things. To my great delight, we pulled up to a little cottage/farmhouse that was obviously well loved and being renovated by the owners over a period of years. A wooden picket fence surrounded the backyard and a goldfish pond and fountain was sectioned off by the fence in a little cloistered area between the house and the garage (both of which looked to be about 80 years old). To further my joy, the lady of the house loved gardens, and crocuses and other flowering plants were peeping up through the mud. We walked into the house to a living room with mis-matched furniture -just what I was used to - and Kristi and I made our way into the kitchen. It was painted dark red with white cabinets, and hand-made wooden shelves were tucked here and there to hold Pampered Chef apparatus. I wanted to laugh with joy.
We were fed grilled pork chops, biscuits, baked and grilled potatoes, canned green beans, and our choice of an assortment of soda, sweet tea, juice, or water.
The drive back to campus was very quiet, as we had all eaten our fill and were all struggling to stay awake. Adam turned on some upbeat jazz music.
That evening I made some chicken-vegetable soup and shared it with my friends the Tant family. Aaron is at Seminary and his wife Lisa is expecting their second child, and little Eli has just entered the "Terrible Two" stage. They've been struggling financially, and since my morning was so blessed I decided to bless them with dinner. All I had was soup and laughter at their retelling of how they started dating interrupted sporadically with scolding little Eli who thought that everyone else's food looked better than his own, and kept getting down from his seat to go find something tucked away in different corners that weren't supposed to be excavated by little fingers. But they appreciated it and I appreciated them as well.
It was a nice breather because this week has been full of catering events, which I love working, but always finish exhausted. Yesterday Andrei and I were behind while setting up, and somehow an entire table ended up without napkins at any of the place settings. Not just paper napkins, the snazy cloth napkins specially folded elegantly. After we opened the doors and five people nicely informed us of the napkin-lack, I told Andrei I'd get the napkins. That involved running down three floors of stairs at the hotel, across a parking lot, through the cafeteria, into the kitchen - which was full of two flustered chefs who were behind on things themselves - into the back where the linens were, grabbing the napkins, dashing back through the cafeteria, almost crashing into a poor student simply trying to pay for his meal, back across the parking lot up the three flights of stairs and almost running into Andrei who wondered if I had gotten the sodium-free meal for one guest on a special diet for health reasons. Whew. Dashing back down across and through to learn from the one flustered-chef that the other flustered-chef had just left with the meal while I was busy dashing about.
I decided to walk slowly back to the catering event and let my sweat dry before I started serving sweet tea.
Speaking of which, I must go get ready to work my second shift of the day in said cafeteria. *sigh* My pocket-book is glad for so many extra hours. However my room mate wants me to work the 6 AM event on Saturday (which means up at 5 am again) and I already work 11-2:30 on Saturday... I pulled a 6am-2:30 pm last Saturday... not sure I want to do it again this weekend.... We'll see.
~Princess Ouch~
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Sweet Tea, hot or cold?
Okay so I've mentioned Sweet Tea before, but this time I'm going into detail.I was on the phone telling my Mom about how very much like the SOUTH it is here, and how when I comment on that fact, people say, 'Weeeelll, noooo, it's not really the South. Well okay I guess kind of, but you're just on the edge of the South. Not like in the heart of the South or the Deep South or anything. Yeah. Just the edge of the South."
To which my Mom replied,
"What EVER. There is no such thing as 'the edge of the south' you are either full in our full out! There is no in between! You're on dry land or you're drowning in the river. Edge of the South? Ha! They are in denial! You are in the South."
Now what on earth does this have to do with Sweet Tea, you ask? I will tell you. Because Sweet Tea is to the South as the Flag is to the United States of America.
So I was talking with a friend who is from Alabama, and I told her what my m
om had said about us not being on the edge of the South. She looked at me with shocked horror and indignation and said,"This is not the South. Any State that does not have a LAW about serving Sweet Tea in all it's restaurants is NOT the South!"
I laughed and was like, 'that's funny Amber' and she looked at me with authentic sobriety and said,
"I'm serious. It is against the law in Alabama to not serve Sweet Tea in our restaurants!"
Okay that's just extreme.
Now you must understand that it cannot be Sweet HOT Tea that we are talking about here. It must be Sweet ICED Tea. You may put some lemon juice in it if you are so inclined, and then you can call it "the champagne of the South." However DO NOT say anything milk or cream in your tea or you will get a 'oh you poor deprived foreigner who doesn't even know how to take your tea' look.
An example would be the other day. I had fifteen minutes between classes, and I was really really tired and rather cold.
(On a side note, whoever runs the temperature control for this facility thinks that we are all going to be Missionaries to Siberia and is trying to acclimate our bodies to extreme temperatures! The classrooms are FREEZING! So we get up early in the morning to go to class and put on sweaters, pants, have our hair down, chunky socks, a few of us have thought of bringing gloves to class. However we're in that building for about three to four hours and so are not around when it heats up to the blazing humid sticky hotness of August that invades the outdoors. So we're trying to convince ourselves that we aren't icicles when we step out the door and are hit with a humid oven blast. It would be one thing if we could dress like it's still technically summer but have a thermos of a hot beverage with us in class, but they want to keep the rugs nice and have banned everything but water in cla
ssrooms. *sigh*)Okay so I was cold and tired. When I was in England several years ago I became acquainted with English Breakfast Tea with sugar and cream and it was one of the best breakfast experiences of my life. They have it at the Cafe here too, however the cafe is across campus. I thought that running might be a good idea, because 1. it would get my blood moving and help me stay awake and warm for the next class and 2. it would help me work off the calories I was about to consume and 3. I didn't know how long the line would be in the Cafe so thought the more time I could save the better it would be.
So I started jogging.
Now, you have to understand, this is a Campus of Southern Bells. Southern Bells do not run if they do not have to. They are still getting over the fact that hoop skirts are out of fashion and ladies can move quicker than a graceful, slow glide without looking uncouth. They CAN go jogging but only for aerobic purposes and in groups or in the gym.
So I caught a few stares as I zipped across campus. I have a friend from Tennessee who was in ROTC all through High School and while he was in a secular college, and almost ran into him.
"Forget something, Rachel?" he asked, laughing.
"Yeah Tea." I called as I continued. I heard him make some sort of "tsch" sound.
Anyway I got my tea and all was good. Until lunch, when I bumped into my Tennessian friend again at the cafeteria.
"So now what did you forget this morning?" he asked.
"Tea. See, I only had a few minutes between classes, but I was really cold and tired, because those classrooms are freezing, so wanted some tea to wake me up, so I was running to get it so I wouldn't be late."
"So you ran all the way there and all the way back. For tea."
"No not all the way back as I didn't want to spill hot liquid on myself."
"Hot liquid? Where'd you get hot liquid? Wait, you got HOT tea?"
Now, first off, I'm kind of wondering why anyone would go get a cold drink to help thaw out from a cold classroom.
Second, the way he said 'hot tea' you'd think I'd said I'd just run to get some Kimchi and Century Eggs from the Korean students 'cause I like it so much.
"Yeah I got HOT tea, remember I was COLD!"
"You drink your tea HOT?"
"Yeah with sugar and milk!"
"You put MILK in your tea?!"
"Well, not if I can get cream."
He kind of backed away from me at that point.
So. I was told that I was doing suprisingly well with the tea for a Northern girl during my first we
ek here. I do LIKE Iced Sweet Tea, but I also like hot English Breakfast tea. Its kind of like, 'Which is better, chocolate chip cookies or chocolate chip cookie dough?"Sometimes I really want the stuff baked and other times I'm like, whats the point? Just leave out the eggs and call it good. Same with tea. Which is better, hot or cold? I realize this issue is an intergral part of the culture here, kind of like Calvinism vs. Armenianism, however I like both. The only difference is that with tea, when it's winter Hot tea is most decidedly better and when I've been outside in blazing heat cold tea is most decidedly better. However I know there's people who have their daily sweet Iced Tea even in negative 13 degree weather with a windchill of negative 30 degrees, and those who will have hot tea even in 99 degree weather. Just like there are those who will demand that you leave the cookie dough unbaked or those who will pull out the health dictionary and list the evils of uncooked dough and why you MUST cook it. Or why others will stay up until two in the morning dancing with circular reasoning about Calvinist vs. Armenianism.
(incidentally when asked if I'm a Calvinist or Armenian I say 'yes' and sit back and enjoy the show as they come unglued. Just kidding. I don't enjoy watching them come unglued I flee in terror before they try to convert me to one extreeme or another)
So yeah. Anyhoo.
There it is. I kind of had to just get that off my chest. I'm sure I rambled, but I'm equally sure you were laughing somewhere after the beggining and before the end at what I wrote. :-) As long as we're all smiling at the end of it, that's what's important, no?
(at least in the case of Tea.)
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