I’m Movin’ Out

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my sister Christine.  She was recently named assistant dean at Lehigh University and is off to move to yet another home.  I’m not sure how many addresses Christine has had in the last decade, but it is an impressive number. 

Whenever I’m “home” (aka in the U.S.) people comment on my bravery.  It looks hardcore to live overseas, even though I’m doing my job for twice the money and benefits as my American counterparts, but I’d actually like to pay homage to the courage of my sister.  Moving is hard.  In fact, I’m willing to stay here for at least 4 years only so I don’t have to do this again any time soon.

The past couple of weeks have been some of the most stressful since I moved to China.  The government here works on the Insh’Allah principle, and I’m teaching a subject I’m not sure I even like.  The children are raised in palaces and the major pastime is mall shopping.  I had to go for a medical exam where all the nurses yelled in Filipino and then took a driving test the next day where a scary military looking man yelled at me while I navigated my car through a crazy, huge, terrifying roundabout with three lanes and two traffic lights.  That road was not made in America.  All of this after a full day of teaching middle school students the finer points of throwing tennis balls at each other in rhythm to attempt a bit of focus and team building while trying to relate it to the reflective philosophies of MYP.

However, as brave as I seem, I’ve only really moved a couple of times.  Ok, so four.  I’ve called only Wisconsin, Pittsburgh, NYC, and China home.  Right now I find myself homesick for bao ze and pi jiu when two years ago I was missing queens and vodka.  Unfortunately, until I’m a legal resident of this country, I cannot visit the infidel “Pork and Barrel” store and purchase some liquid coping.  I’m left to my own devices to deal with the desert heat, the call to prayer every few hours, and the lack of anything that resembles street food.  Other teachers have suggesting shopping at the nearby MegaMart to obtain comfort food known as Kraft dinner.  I’m not sure what the other westerners are thinking in this foreign land, but I find labneh and za’tar far more comforting than phosphoric acid cheese and sodium encrusted noodles. 

So back to Christine.  I am finding moving is a true test of character.  Can you handle stress, being out of your comfort zone, relying on people who you’ve only just met, figuring out a strange neighborhood, and jumping into the deep end of a job you are slightly unsure of?  Then can you do that every few years?  And continue to keep a smile on your face?  I know my sister can, and I’m hoping to survive this most recent scary time.  I understand the many people who choose to stay close to home.  Leaving the nest means you may fall out of the tree.  (Now I’m going to get super cheesy.) However, how do you know if you can fly if you don’t test your wings every once in a while? 

Get out.  See something new.  Try some camel meat. 

It won’t kill you.  It will only make you stronger.  Or at least more you.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Like many of the tasks on the first day of school, I’m not promising the most interesting of posts.  Instead of telling you what I did last summer, or even what I’ve done on my year and a half hiatus, I will expound on some of the more culturally shocking things I’ve experienced since moving to the Arabian peninsula.

 

It’s hot.  That may be an obvious statement.  You are thinking, of course, it’s the desert!  However, unless you have a sauna that reaches over 120º F that you never leave with a fan blowing hot air at you, you have not experienced the desert heat.  And it never goes away.  Most of the socializing and shopping here seem to happen after the last call to prayer, which is around 8:00 PM.  The sun goes down around 6:30, and I am still a hot, sweaty mess walking around the souq at 10:00 PM. 

 

I have never felt so modest in my life.  I can’t say that I’ve ever really been shy.  I have not spent my days trying to look like a lady of the night, but now I feel embarrassed when I show a hint of collarbone.  Let me say this now, and I will reiterate it as long as I read ignorant comments on the news, Facebook, or anywhere else people leave their opinions – I DO NOT FEEL REPRESSED.  It’s akin to walking into church in a bikini.  You could wear a bikini, but it would be disrespectful, and people would look at you funny.  I think of it this way – I used to love fall because I got to hide in layers of sweaters and scarves.  Now I get to hide in billowy shirts and skirts all year round.  It’s no wonder Qatar is quickly catching up to the U.S. in obesity.  The plus side is none of the locals will ever run around in an inappropriately-fitted tube top.

 

I am not alone.  I have a team in school.  This is perhaps the most wonderful thing about being here.  Though I am unsure of what exactly a drama teacher does (aside from teach drama, whatever that means) I have six other wonderful educators in my department with common planning time.  They have already been extremely helpful in issues from moving here to curriculum to where can we go for a delicious dinner this week. 

 

Moving is never easy.  This past week has definitely been a roller coaster.  The scary wooden kind that feels like it’s going to fall apart.  Still, so far this ride has been worth the price of admission, and, if nothing else, I am learning valuable lessons on patience.

 

I will continue updating this blog on Saturdays (the new Sunday! Another culture shock!).

 

Insh’Allah, of course.

Life Upon the Wicked Stage

Tradition.

Every spring, my family geared up for an event I looked forward to each year.  An evening of magic and song, with romance, tragedy, laughter and tears.  I’m not talking about my birthday, but the opening of the high school spring musical.

As the daughter of a high school teacher, I grew up roaming the halls after dark, befriending the janitors, and joking around with teenagers. My favorite evenings were spent in the darkened auditorium, running up and down the orange-carpeted aisles as my dad yelled direction at the students struggling to make it through “Anatevka.”  I knew all the lines to Fiddler, Guys and Dolls, and Showboat before I was 10.  I played Gretl in The Sound of Music in two different productions.  I thought the acting bug bit me when I was five, but after painful cattle call auditions in New York reality hit.  The life of an actor sucks.

I tried hard.  And I’m really good at convincing myself of things.  I wanted to cut music and the stage from my life like the horrible tumor it (convincing!!) was.

How, though, do you deny a love of something that brings tears to your eyes at the rise of a curtain?

Luckily, in 2005, I was given the gift of opportunity. My alma mater decided to forgo the spring musical for lack of a director.  Normally, selfish as I am, I wouldn’t have cared at all, but this was my baby sister’s senior year, and ain’t no one messing with my family and the things they love.  I went home, cast 35 kids for a “small” production of Godspell and fell in love all over again and deeper with musical theater.  Why had I ever tried to put myself on stage when I could help high school students experience the absolute high of a ball change and an Eb?

So here I am again, only this time in China.  You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown opens next Thursday – the first musical this school has seen.  Once again, I have been blessed to be a part of an amazing group of people who are pouring heart and soul into this low-budget production of a mediocre show, and it’s the most beautiful thing ever.  Parents are stepping forward to volunteer, cast members who don’t even know what a jazz square is are giving me razzle dazzle, and this morning, I was presented with my very own Snoopy handbag complete with red and white polka dots.

You can keep you Tony’s and your Obie’s.  I have my Godspell scrapbook and my Peanuts purse.  They are invaluable to me, and I look forward to the other awards I collect in the future.

Back in Black (or red or pink or some other happier color)

Over the last few months friends and relatives have casually mentioned my lack of blog activity.  I am pleased to announce to those of you who have missed my updates in adventures in teaching in China, I am now making a goal of once again writing about the happy things that happen in my life.  Or sometimes frustrations, but I’d like to stick to non-sad topics.  I already complain too much.

I stopped writing because everything just became really hard.  And stressful.   Then I traveled for a couple of weekends in a row and received a huge dose of perspective.  I’ve recovered a bit of my joie de vivre and will make more of an effort to keep it alive and share it with you.  You’re pretty lucky.

So, thank you for those of you who have politely nagged or not so politely nagged me to write again.  I know it will be good for me.

And the thing that will make them ring…

The year and the holiday season are drawing to a close here in Escanaba, mi and all over the world.  The Christmas tree is losing needles, the carefully wrapped presents have been torn open, and we’ve all gained at least five pounds from too many cookies and Christmas cheer.  I’m so oversaturated by holiday celebrations, the thought of New Year’s Eve (a.k.a. amateur night) fills me with a sense of dread.  I especially hope there is no Christmas music played at the upcoming soiree.

 

Yes.  I am tired of Christmas music.

 

Every year, I try desperately to hold off on listening to one of my 861 Christmas songs until Thanksgiving Day, and every year I cheat.  I think I made it to the middle of September in 2010.  It was a tough fall.  By the 26^th of December, though, I am ready to pack away the holiday playlist for the next 11 (realistically 9.5) months.

 

Apparently, many people are annoyed by Christmas music even in the thick of the most wonderful time of the year.  I simply don’t understand this.  It is my belief that these people have not truly experienced the magic made possible by Christmas carols.  Let me give you a couple of examples just from the past week:

 

Even though the youngest of my siblings is 23, all four of us make it a point to come home for Christmas – even when living on the other side of the world. My mom is the director of the church choir, and always recruits her kids to be guest musicians.  On Christmas Eve, the four of us and Aunt Mary did the music for one of the masses in, of course, 4-part harmony.  Every year, when we sing “Lo, How a Rose E’re Blooming” there are tears in the eyes of more than one congregant.  I assume it’s because they’re happy, but one never knows.

 

Later, for the midnight mass at 9 o’clock, we joined the choir itself.  I was seated in the front row of the loft, right next to my mother’s waving hand, where I was able to lean over and watch the church-goers celebrate the birth of the holy child.  During each song, all the children in the crowd would turn around and stare up in wonder at the music coming from on high. My nerdy siblings and I exchange knowing smiles during the readings and hum the melodies from Messiah that we will sing along to after mass.  Then, as is tradition, we close the mass with a jubilant “Joy to the World” complete with descant.  It’s impossible to leave the service feeling low.  The music makes it possible for the spirit of the season to appear and inspire.  Just like in the Grinch.

 

On Christmas Day itself, after the tears of happiness over perfect presents have dried, my family bundles up and goes caroling in the neighborhood.  Now, over the last four months, I have endured insults pertaining to my chosen instrument – the human voice.  I have been told it’s not real music, that anyone could teach a choir, and that there’s no reason to learn to read music as a singer.  Anyone who would dare think such nonsense has never sung with an ensemble as fine as my family.  Or seen the reactions to something as simple as knocking on a door and bursting into “Angels We Have Heard On High.” My siblings and I, not having grown up in Escanaba, know no one in my parents’ neighborhood.  Prepared for yet another round of “O, Come All Ye Faithful,” we were let into a house occupied by a woman and her elderly father confined to a wheelchair.  As soon as we began our carol, tears filled his eyes.  I couldn’t look at him for fear of breaking down myself, and neither could the rest of my sensitive siblings, but I am grateful for moments like that.  Who knows what memories were stirred with just a simple arrangement of an over-played song, sung by a bunch of amateurs from down the street.  Whatever they were, they looked joyous.  Tell me again that’s not real music.

 

So, while I am definitely over Mannheim Steamroller and the Boston Pops and Mariah Carey, I also look forward to next year when the greatest gift in our house isn’t found under the Christmas tree, but in the hymnals and carol books used to spread a bit holiday joy.  Until then…All the rest of my days.

The Perfect Playlist or On a Steel Horse I Ride

One of the random pseudo-facts I hold in my head is that hobbies are a sign of a mentally healthy person.  It’s pseudo because I couldn’t ever cite the source.  During my first year of grad school, I was able to become much closer to my younger brother.  While I spent hours at the computer with Sam Adams Light trying to add pages to the academic paper of the moment, I welcomed any Skype interruption from him.  With all this music philosophy running around my crowded brain, he was a person with similar musical sensibilities with whom I could discuss the nerdiest of nerdy things, both musical and otherwise.  I don’t remember the specifics of the conversations, but I know they were some of the best in my life.

A hobby of my brother’s, which I used to share, is creating the perfect playlist.  The descendent of the mixtape, a perfect playlist is surprisingly difficult to create.  Like any good setlist, balance of mood, audience, tempo, and shape are just a few of the considerations.  Then one could get into themes, keys, which recording is superior, and many other numerous aspects of each of the 35,000+ items in one’s iTunes library.  Scrolling through all those songs takes so much time, being familiar with the songlist and the artists is fairly crucial in a time management sort of way.

I digress.

I once loved creating perfect playlists.  Playlists for seasons, holidays, people, studying, cleaning, or just because.  After a conversation last night with John, I realized I hadn’t made a playlist (aside from my winter concert program) since I left New York.  I look at my iTunes library and see strangers and estranged friends.  It’s as if I don’t even know where to begin.  What happened to my hobby?

Without realizing the pertinence of his inspiration, John sent me some homework.  This playlist is very difficult – the best recordings.  Those that are not necessarily favorite songs, but that evoke emotion each listen and truly capture the musical moment.  I find myself embarrassed, because, right now, I have no ideas.  I’m listening to his now, slightly in vain.  I don’t even remember how to listen to my own music.

Then I thought, maybe I’ll make a life playlist, an exercise we Gravelle children have worked through before.  As I started to think of which songs I would put on a playlist about my life in the last 6 months or so, I realized my blog is my playlist.  I’ve come to the jungle where I feel, all the time, I’m fakin’ it.  I miss my house, but will be home for Christmas.  Then because of exhaustion and red wine, I began to ponder – am I allowed to choose the next songs?  Is my library set on random?  And exactly how random is random when its music are songs and pieces I’ve chosen to download?  If I don’t like the next song, can I skip it?  Put one on repeat?  Go back to the previous two?

As life is not a computer program, probably, no.  It’s still a comforting thought, one I may hang onto for awhile.  I will be content with the knowledge that I can make a great playlist, but every once in awhile Dave Matthews or Sarah McLaughlin or Nora Jones might show up to ruin my day.  I refuse to end my playlist on such notes, however.  I still believe I will and am determined to see a million faces and rock them all.  I will make the greatest playlist of all time.

A-gotta get yourself a bargain, son. Don’t be sold on the very first one.

It’s never been one of my personal traditions, but as I write this I know that many of my American friends and family are in bed recovering from a long, hard day of shop-

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ping.  Black Friday has once again come and gone, starting off the most wonderful time of the year with a big bang of consumerism.  Unfortunately for the American retailers, I handed all my holiday shopping money over to the Chinese economy last weekend in Shanghai.

Getting out of Dodge was not as simple as I thought it would be.  Because domestic flights here have even less amenities than their western counterparts, I got a roundtrip flight out of Dalian for only $77.  The catch being it left at 11:30 pm.  After a couple hours of happy hour with the administration, my two beautiful shopping friends and I piled into a mini-van armed with Coronas for the 60-minute commute.  When we finally landed at the Shanghai airport, it was nearing 2 am.  Thinking the bus into town would save us some of our shopping money, we found standing space in an overly crowded shuttle to the city proper.  Which was an hour away.  By the time we checked in to the Best Western, it was 4 in the morning.  Everyone was exhausted from a long week of teaching, and thinking perhaps a weekend getaway was a stupid, stupid idea.

That all changed when we saw the pearl market.

First, we had a delicious meal at a restaurant that had real salad and Bloody Maries.  There were people who looked happy, and we could sit outside because the weather is still like September in Wisconsin.  Gorgeous.

After the pit stop, we were prepared for some serious holiday shopping.  Shanghai, like the rest of China, is still like Chinatown the nth degree, but the quality of the stuff you can buy in the market is astounding.  Bags, shoes, and sunglasses are fakes, but they’re really good fakes.  And the pearls are not fakes.  They are real, gorgeous, and ridiculously inexpensive.  I usually don’t believe in buying nice jewelry for oneself, but I left the pearl market after 3 intense hours of bargaining dripping with baubles.

In places like this, there are no price tags.  Being a westerner usually means the vendors will raise the price to something astronomical, as we aren’t supposed to know the rules of the bargaining system.  I would ask the price of a shirt or a pair of earrings, and would usually end up paying half the initial cost.  One woman, probably because I’m blond and was at that point alone, tried to get me to pay her 450 rmb for a shirt.  I actually laughed in her face.  I paid 100.  The key, we found, is to stick to whatever price you want and when the ladies start complaining about how you’re stealing from them, turn and walk away.  They will chase you down, yell, complain some more, but all of sudden you have 9 new handbags for $30.  It’s exhausting, but there’s a cantina in the market with delicious mojitos when the yelling and chasing gets to be too much.

The worst part of the trip was coming home.

Living in the middle of nowhere has given me ample time for self-reflection, and I am now enlightened to the fact that I NEED to live in a city.  In Shanghai, I ate in a restaurant with cloth napkins and candles.  I had real coffee in a really cool coffee house.  I went into buildings that didn’t smell of urine.  Fewer people spit all over the sidewalk.  There were tall, interesting buildings, a well-run public transportation system, and an Apple store.  Living in the mountains is pretty and all, but nothing ever happens.  Ever.  While I feel I’ve been pretty good at making my life a bit adventurous, being in Shanghai reminded me of the possibilities still out there.  I am not chained to any place or anything, and there’s still so much of the world to see.  Not only did I come back with all my Christmas shopping finished, and more jewelry than I ever thought I’d own, I found hope in the big city. My new pearls are pretty and all, but they won’t get me through the long winter ahead like hopes and dreams will.  Though they help.

So while both my Chinese and American bank accounts are empty, I am looking forward to the future – the far-off time when I will move on to the next adventure, and the near future when I’ll return to the fair city of New York and dance among the fairy lights on Fifth Avenue.

Please have snow, and mistletoe

Ok.  I owe a blog on Shanghai because that’s interesting and people haven’t been there, etc.  Let’s talk about Thanksgiving in China.

Last year at this time, I was helping prepare a bunch of kindergarten kids to perform “The Eagle and the Turkey” at an Upper East Side private school.  This year, I’m hoping the Chinese waitstaff knows who Martha Stewert is

Thanksgiving has always been my gateway holiday to Christmas, completely unimportant, but this year it seems a bit different.  I find myself being sentimental about strange things.  I won’t be celebrating at the same time as my American counterparts, and that actually bothers me.

But on a more positive note…..

My immediate family and I have always been close, but because of the last year of my life I see more and more the amazingness of my siblings.  If I sang and worked with no one else ever, I would be happy to work with them.  My mother is the musician I strive to be. My father is the teacher one can only dream of.  And hearing the Gravelle kids sing…. You’re a lucky, lucky audience member.   In Praise and Thanksgiving of the Gravelle’s.  We are the very definition of harmony.  And tension and release.

PAGRAB.  I’ve learned how to give peace a chance, how to sail, how to be rescued, how to read for hours or days on end without talking to a live human, how to worship, how to support, how to love, how to be a family, and how to cook the perfect marshmellow.  No one has a better corporation than I.

New York.  I can’t even begin. My life. My passions. My loves. Me.  You have made me who I am.  I came to you, broken and a potential.  Thank you for looking at me and finding me before I could.  You’ve given me strength to move on, and the love to feel the longing of having you no longer.  Someday, we will be together again.  Seriously.  We’re meant for each other.

And most difficult of all, I thank whoever is running this circus for my being in China.  I was told from birth education is never wasted.  Cool.  I am not wasted.

To my family (and I mean all of you) happy Thanksgiving.   I love you more than my cynical, sarcastic self would allow said aloud.  Know that I’m thinking of you.  And drinking lots of wine.

I’m Not Really makin’ it, This Feelin’ of Fakin’ It, I Still Haven’t Shaken It

At the Dalian American International School, there are various student publications that require students to ask strange questions of their teachers during morning prep time before we’ve had sufficient amounts of coffee to realize the odd things that may be coming out of our mouths.  Perhaps that’s just me.  When asked how I wanted to die (who supervised that question?) I told the children, “In a blaze of glory.”  I guess it’s still funny.  Although I’ve just taken my first sips of coffee.

One day, the question was do I wear knock-offs.  In case you don’t know, a knock-off is a piece of clothing or accessory that looks like it’s a very expensive name-brand, but is very cheap and can be bought on the street in major cities.  Or EVERYWHERE in China.  I’ve been thinking about knock-offs a lot as the holiday season approaches.  A New York City tradition is to take the subway down to Chinatown and buy knock-off bags for all your relatives who do not live in New York.  Whenever people have asked what China is like, I say, think about Canal Street and multiply by a thousand.

We joke about “made in China,” but it’s definitely based in fact.  I finally decided to explore my own neighborhood, and walked around for a couple of hours yesterday.  There’s a housing complex going up near the compound that is supposed to look like a Western development complete with a convenience store.  It’s pretty much empty.  Further down the road is a knock-off Disney World called Discovery Land.  At the park entrance is a store that boasts “Americana Apparel.”  There were very few actual American looking things.

The An Sheng mall abounds with fakes.  The shoes all say Coach, the bags Gucci, the wallets Fendi, the coats Prada.  I’ve bought more M.A.C. and Dior make-up than a music teacher should own.  My DVD collection has increased by at least 30, because all the DVD’s are $2.  That’s like 6 movies to one over-crowded New York City movie where some girl is always yelling into her phone about some dude that’s played her.

People buy fakes because they’re more affordable at first glance.  That’s why I have 10 new eyeshadows.  Unfortunately, fakes usually have poor stitching and other shoddy craftsmanship.

Here’s the self-reflective part.  Now that I’m halfway through November, and there’s still a month of the semester left, I’m starting to feel like a fake myself.  The “curriculum” I “wrote” at the beginning of the year has either failed in some classes or just sort of petered out in others.  Yes, the concert is coming up, and I have music to work on, but there is no way I’m listening to Nutcracker Jingles for 90 minutes.  I have the pretty labels that other knock-offs do, but I feel a complete lack of substance.  It’s kind of scary to look at 4 more weeks of school and not know what sort of general music stuff to do that’s actually relevant to everything else we’ve talked about.  I sat down on Saturday to map out everything I want to do next semester, bearing in mind the good and the bad of this semester.  Ah, teacher anxiety.

At least I fit in with the other fakes on this side of the world.  I can still look pretty on the outside even though I’m ready to fall apart.  However, I am bound and determined to get myself off the fake table and at least up to Target’s ready-to-wear status.

I Shall Not Fear the Dark of Night, Nor the Arrow That Strikes By Day

This will be a blog without pictures as I am bad at remembering to take them and I have gotten to the point where I think China is normal, and it’s sort of like you taking pictures of your backyard.  Although I guess there are people who do that.  If you are one of them, I think you’re weird, but no judgments.

Speaking of not judging, today I attended mass for the first time since I moved to China.  Believe it or not, a Catholic church with a service in English is fairly difficult to find in a communist country in the eastern hemisphere.  After 3 months, and being 25 minutes late to the service (I felt like a real Catholic), I have found a place where I can belt out “Glory and Praise to Our God” with an electric piano and sing the Our Father a la Barbra.

Now I’m going to get all cheesy on you, so if you have a weak stomach, stop reading and go back to my post on rage.

I felt like I’d come home.  You know the Shakespeare thing about absence makes the heart grow fonder?  I know this sounds a little crazy, and WAY too holy roller for my tastes, but just walking through the gates of this little Korean church and seeing the statue of Jesus with his arms open, welcoming those who were seeking sanctuary, lifted my spirits more than I could have imagined.  I looked up and was like, “Yo, Jesus.  Nice to see you.  It’s been awhile.”  Seriously.  I said that out loud.  Living alone has made me insane.

Though I am familiar with the words of the greatest Teacher of them all, I totally judge masses and churches, and feel justified in my mass snobbery.  I’m a pedigreed Catholic.  No, I don’t regularly attend, break most of the rules on purpose with no guilt, and have referred to the current pope as Benedict Arnold, but I went to Catholic school, my godmother’s a sister, my mom’s the ultimate church lady (in a good way, not in a “could it be Satan” way), and I can sing cheesy harmony to most of the songs in Glory and Praise.  Step up.  I judge based on the people attending, whether or not the priest tells the people who are actually in church supporting his dying mission that they’re going to hell for not being good enough and then asking them for all their money, and, most importantly, the music.  Here’s where my classical music snobbery totally loses.  I love Catholic guitar music.  It’s awesome.  And this church has illegally copied all the amazing songs from the Breaking Bread hymnal and put them together in their own half Korean half English praise book.  At the end of mass, I was recruited to song lead next Sunday.  I just can’t get away from it.  Even in China.  They’re like my mother.  (I’m just kidding!!! Please do not give me grief about saying that for the rest of my life.  You do not shove cantoring down my throat!  I like it!)

Anyway, I’ve waxed poetic (or at least waxed) on my beautiful family, and how much home means to me, and in one week, I had a good friend come to China and remind me of the person I once was and want to be, and I got to go to a church that made me feel like I belonged.  That’s a lot to receive in just one week.  I’ve been looking for something to hang onto here that was meaningful.  I’ve regularly read my Uncle Mark’s Facebook posts, have gone to temples, attended worship services I’m not used to, listened to masses by the greats (Schubert, Poulenc,Verdi, and Bernstein, not Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson), looked at my Bible (not open.  I just like the blue leather cover), and moved my Jesus action figure around my nightstand, but have not found the spiritual food I’ve been craving until this evening.  This whole time I just needed a little Marty Haugen and Dan Schutte.  Although I do miss having boxed wine after service.  The Episcopalians in New York have it down.

So, thank you Michelle Andre and Jesus for reminding me who I’ve worked so hard to become and that I’m still not done with this wonderful, crazy, hella fun great adventure.  You both brought me home this week.  Amen.