… and I do know that I cannot actually become Latina when I grow up.

I am also aware that it is not possible to actually be 1/3 Aruban.

I can, however, inadvertently give the dudes at the shop my entire set of keys and then end up coming up out of the G train and realizing, “Oh, shit, Volkswagen now has my apartment keys.”

That’s what working until 5:30 in the morning will do ya for.

Jiminy Christmas!

- My eighth grade & junior varsity basketball coach, generally prior to getting a T 

While I was walking around my new hood this past Friday, I noticed two beams of light reaching skyward from the footprint of the WTC. Got me thinking about that day.

Here’s what I sent to the Academy listserv the afternoon of September 11, 2001.

Suckers thought they’d get me

I hereby withdraw my earlier assessment that evil does not exist. While I intellectually can understand that one might have passion for their beliefs (in fact, I should hope that all of us are passionate about our respective beliefs), it is outside the scope of comprehension that one could justify the pursuit of these beliefs as demonstrated earlier today.

Of course, counterpoint, if ones belief system is such that you are supposed to pursue these beliefs with violence (jihad?), then it only makes sense that you should hijack a 767 and ram it into 1 WTC.

ALO and I are safe (I am in her dorm room now). My subway stop is at the corner of Fulton/Broadway, one block from the WTC. When I came up out of the subway, there were a lot of people looking up into the air and a number of sirens being sounded. I asked a well-dressed older gentleman what had happened. He replied that the WTC was on fire and that some people had been jumping from the top, which explained why there were a number of people that looked shell-shocked. This was 9:04 a.m.

I walked slowly east towards my office, occasionally looking back, when I felt the ground begin to shake and heard a large explosion. People began to scream and every glass window in sight shattered and fell to the ground. At this point I began to sprint my ass down the street, but then I couldn’t decide whether I should run against the buildings or in the middle of the street. (I chose the middle of the street since it was less crowded.) Behind me I could hear people screaming but I just recall feeling incredibly scared. Thank god I used to run track.

I have read that violent movies and the like have desensitized our ability to feel real fear, that the fear we feel in the theatre is no different from the fear we feel looking down the barrel of a gun (son of a gun, son of a …). But the fear I felt this morning gripped me from the base of my spine and set me in motion on my instinctual path as far away from the WTC as possible. An additional thank god for geriatric easy spirit pumps.

I thought I was going to vomit by the time I got to the elevator bank of my office, 5 blocks from the WTC. Apparently, the explosion that I felt was the 2nd plane crashing (which my boyfriend had witnessed from the street in front of his own building). I figured, that’s it, end of story. We could see the flames from my CEO’s office, and there was an air of surreal excitement. I replied to an email from a client in Stamford (ironically, my old boss) and she said that they were all watching it on TV. (Yeah, try watching it from your _desk_.)

Suddenly, the earth began to tremble again, and I could hear the indescribable noise of destruction. People on the street below began to shriek. I ran to the nearest doorway (hey, I’m a dork) since isn’t that the safe thing to do? Whereas we had all been planning to leave the office, now we were stuck. A thick cloud of smoke enveloped our windows and the interior of our office was a dismal gray. Once the smoke cleared a bit, we were able to see the ground below; it looked like it had just snowed. We couldn’t even see the WTC at this point.

At this point, I informed ALO via AIM that I was indeed trekking it up to her dorm. It’s not a short walk, but it was bizarre. I walked with a coworker who knew about the structure of the WTC towers. Apparently, unlike most buildings, the WTC are built with external supports so that they can have an open floor plan. When the fire began and hit 1000 degrees, the steel began to melt and the force of the building (plus, hello, a PLANE sitting inside of you) caused the collapse.

My cell phone was down because the Sprint PCS tower is on top of the WTC. There were throngs of people streaming north with various amounts of dust covering their bodies. Large vats of bottled water were being delivered along the route, and everyone had their breathing passages covered. We passed a special students bus and the poor children had no idea how to cope. This girl with down’s syndrome was bawling hysterically. How to explain to her what was going on?

How to explain to anyone what had happened, and why?

I have no idea how long it took me to arrive at ALO’s dorm, but the land lines are out intermittently as are the cell phones. I am still tweaked right now whenever I hear a plane pass overhead (although intellectually I know they are all fighter jets at this point). I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop. We have no idea if biological warfare is involved in this attack, and its quite possible that NY’s open reservoirs could have been contaminated as well.

We are stuck on Manhattan. Mass transit is shut down and all of the bridges and tunnels are closed. My boyfriend walked for an hour north up to Penn Station before he found this out. (Another shout out to text messaging which works if you can get a phone that works and reach an operator.)

I haven’t heard from Houser yet, but I know that her building is further away from the WTC than mine (but not by much).

So what can be said? I have no idea why anyone would do this, but I applaud their ingenuity and execution and of course, blame it all on George Bush. I would so much prefer Clinton at the helm that W right now. But that’s a story for another day.

Signing off. Another plane just flew by over head and I’m tweaked.

ANP

It kind of puts everything, the grand mess as it were, into perspective, n’est-ce pas?

Just want to give a shout out to my boy A.K., Dov wunderkind and the youngest board member of American Apparel.

I’m proud of you, and if you don’t make good on your promise to introduce me to that crazy boss of yours next time you’re in the City, I will hunt you down while wearing my turquoise leather jacket.

P.S. What, no Academy reference in your bio?!  WTF?!? 

I. On Class

The other day my girl Aleeece popped a link into a comment: Yale’s Other Class. There are themes within the article that resonate with my post reacting to Mango Lassi’s article on liberals. I’d glanced at it when she sent it, but could see immediately that if I read it at the office I’d starting getting emotional. Emotion not so good when I’m trying to be a robot.

She’d learn to pour wine correctly … as well as pick off free food at receptions. But she would never allow herself truly to connect with her classmates and feel comfortable.

If you saw my one-woman show you already know how I feel about this. The gist: I created walls in my head that sounded a lot like, “I don’t belong here,” and once erected, they were as impenetrable as any Gothic moat in New Haven. Confirmation bias, self-fulfilling, yaddi yadz.

But her education would be all about class, as she learned to navigate an upper-crust world that left her feeling confused, resentful and deeply inadequate.

It’s true that the public magnet residential school I attended my junior and senior years in high school predisposed me for some emotional rockiness in advance of my Yale experience:

• Three of my Academy classmates (2% of our class) committed suicide within a six week span at the end of my junior year; one had attempted to murder three of his best friends by carefully poisoning them over a span of several weeks with chemicals gripped from Cooper Science
• My fellow Academites were are intensely brilliant. We loved knowledge. (Check out video from our five year reunion.)
• The environment was what sociology types would describe as a total institution
• Risk aversion and matters of polish were unknown. Fiery intelligence and deep passion reigned supreme. You were direct and did not back down from an argument, and you respected those who could verbally lacerate you. You didn’t hold back.
• Flannel and tapered jeans were not considered uncool, circa 1994.

Look, I’m from a town of 1,000 in the Midwest with no friggin’ stoplights. Even if the Academy hadn’t been intense, my transition would’ve been difficult: Many of my classmates wore Steve Maddens; I wore combat boots. Many of my classmates studied abroad; I worked all manner of work-study jobs through college while having some vague involvement with a couple of Varsity-level sports. Many of my classmates talked about the theory of welfare; my older sister was on food stamps.

Many of my classmates used ’summer’ as a verb.

But here’s the rub: they didn’t all summer in Steve Maddens whilst selecting study abroad programs and pontificating on welfare-to-work programs. But in my “I don’t belong here” brain, that’s the reality I chose to see. And I had a hard time seeing the common ground between myself and the classmates who were upper-crusty. But she would never allow herself truly to connect with her classmates and feel comfortable.

That, perhaps, is what hurts most about Aurora’s story. Her socioeconomic background was something that legitimately kept some opportunities out of her reach; her inner monologue was another. And the latter, not the former, may have been her limiting reagent.

II. On Sport

The article, though, included some points that I disagreed with:

… admissions breaks for athletes … have perpetuated a system that for centuries has reproduced the ruling elite.

I’m not sure I agree with this, as for many athletes, being recruited was the only thing that made them consider a place like Yale. Plucked from corn fields somewhere between California and the East Coast, many of us found ourselves ghettoized from the rest of our classmates:

• We were always at practice together
• We hit the dining halls later as a fxn of 5:30 a.m. or evening practices / lift workouts
• We were on the road on the weekends for competition
• We were often too exhausted to really give a shit about our problem sets. (You try mustering up the energy to trek to the Language Lab when your muscles are searing from your regatta the day before!)
• If our team respected a dry season, it was pointless to go out if you couldn’t barf with the rest of your classmates

I know that for male athletes in particular, they felt looked down on by the 5′8″ Daily News writers. So when the article brings up stuff about athletes making Yale less diverse socioeconomically, I’d have to say the opposite is true: athletes are an important part of increasing socioeconomic diversity at Yale.

Here’s more on the athlete issue from the article:

The college applications that students take for granted today were created in the 1920s by Harvard, Princeton and Yale to limit Jewish enrollment, sociologist Jerome Karabel writes in his book “The Chosen.” Jews were outperforming the sons of the Protestant establishment on standardized tests, and the Big Three needed a pretext to turn some away. The new admissions system would require letters of recommendation and emphasize sports and subjective traits such as leadership and character.

Still in place today, the system no longer screens out Jews but has done remarkably well at leaving the poor and working class outside the gates.

Not entirely accurate, but I know where the author is going with it, and I do agree that The System is shooting for All Look Same.

Anyway, back to How This Article Is Really About Me:

In high school, Aurora took only two Advanced Placement classes each semester

There were only two A.P. classes total at my hometown high school!

III. On Money

There were hints, even before she got there, that she’d be an outsider… She could have picked a cushy job in the library, checking out books, or in the development office, calling up alumni to ask for money. Instead, she chose to work in the Davenport dining hall, washing dishes.

Okay, I did do the alumni fund, and I’m not going to lie: that job is hard. But the reporter fails to note that dining hall jobs are among the highest paid jobs on campus.

[A classmate’s] sense of entitlement made her indignant.

I am beginning to understand that when I get huffy about entitlement, it’s usually because I’m mad that someone else feels like they can have something, when I’m so busy telling myself I don’t deserve anything.

I have come to realize that while some of my annoyance at the entitlement of others is justified, some of my historical annoyance has simply been me being jealous that they didn’t have a punishing voice in their head.

While her classmates party at Myrtle Beach during senior week, she stays in New Haven to work and relax.

Yup, didn’t go to Myrtle. Did, however, work as an usher during graduation in 1998 to make a few bucks.

She’ll stay on campus for another two weeks to work alumni reunions.

IV. In Sum

I’m still trying to figure out the connections between:

• My feeling lost at Yale
• And then feeling that it was my home
• Accepting the nomination for Class Secretary
• Getting elected
• Being a really active alumna
• Not having an ethnic or religious People
• Reconnecting with my bright college dears

But I do wonder: am I the only one that felt lost and out of place at Yale? It can’t be so. Great swaths of the 06520 felt like the land of misfit toys at times.

(And let me just dwell on that for a moment: much of being at Yale meant feeling deeply lonely, and it was exacerbated by being surrounded by people that I felt were having the time of their lives. It’s hard for me to reconnect to the white-hot cavern of alienation today, but I felt incredibly on the outside for much of the time. This feeling is what drove me to major in extracurriculars in the first place.)

Perhaps the more interesting story is why we all tried so hard to be something we were not: together, in-control throwers-of-wine-&-cheese-parties.

Happy three-oh to my best friend in the whole wide world.

Although I was unable to isolate any data in support of an Aries - Scorpio BFF LYLAS sitch, I love you!

Signed,

Pootie Nemitz

Four Norwegians and one point five Asian-American Hoosiers walk into a …

Romanian diner in Fort Greene for Sundy* brunch, then Kenny’s delicious brick oven pizzeria in Billyburg for Mundy* dinner.

(Factoid: one of Kenny’s former waitresses is an Asian-American Muncie native and Academy grad.)

I go totally mongs over the best tee shirt I’ve seen in a long time …

… fill my belly with the yumminess known as chicken and mushroom and cream sauce over a pasta whose name starts with o, and throw John over my shoulder twice.

Anders wins the award for dumb jock of the day by not being able to take a picture of the man-over-shoulder spectacle. (I joke! Mr. I-Play-Volleyball is large enough to crush me like a bug. I choose not to get on his bad side.)

Norwegians and Academites alike love Kenny’s and make no additional commentary about the:

• Largeness of our stoves
• Roundness of our municipal garbage cans
• Loudness of our voices
• “Inconvenience” of tax and tip not being bundled into the price of food
• Popularity of gold as vehicle color

I wish I weren’t so busy these days! I could spend more time getting to know them in a less time-constrained manner. Siemens non-drone with quick wit? Volleyball player that’s ten feet tall? Mustachioed man who sticks tobacco in his lip and claims that pot smokers in Norway are low class? DUDE WITH SHIRT THAT READS MONGO?!?!

Yeah. John has good people in his life for sure.

Ooops, my kitchen timer just went off. Time to stop blogging and move to the next item on my to-do list. Must! Achieve!

* As pronounced by Daniel Kaye “You kids’ll be sorry when I’m dead and gone” P., poppa to ANP

So in between glass of wine #5 and #6 at Ramsey’s dinner party on Friday, I find out that a fellow varsity athlete and resident of my college (JE SUX!) will be getting married to Mr. Google.

Who is worth, like, a few bucks and stuff.

And, come to think of it, isn’t Melinda Gates the friend of one of the older sisters of Academy Dorothea?

And today I realized that Google = Go Ogle, which is fitting, given:  “My nimble fingers + keyboard + search box + first names + last names of people I may or may not know in real life.”

P.S. Guess which one of The Sisters P is nicknamed “The Brown Peanut”?

I just donated a couple hundred bucks to The Indiana Academy Scholars Fund

Fund #1023- Indiana Academy Scholars Fund

The Scholars Fund: A specific purpose fund.
Gifts to this fund have the sole purpose of assisting students who cannot afford the room and board fees to attend the Academy and are not eligible for other assistance.

via this link. (Chose “Indiana Academy” under Gift Information and included the fund name in the Comments at the very bottom. Click here for more info.)

The short? Budget cuts have forced The Academy to charge its students $1,500 in room and board. May not sound like much, but when I think about kids like Curtis or Eatin’ Beaver or most of the other students that made my experience so incredible, it made it easy to bust out my wallet and earn Thank You points for each dollar donated.

Of course, when I think about Nate or Scott or Kevin, it makes me wish they had a fund dedicated to provided top-notch therapy gratis to anyone who needed it. And by top-notch, I don’t mean a graduate student nodding silently for an hour and then telling you that you’d better head back to class.

I’d give a lot more to that fund. But something is better than nothing.

Join me –

Click here to donate.

After the jump, Drew Ramsey IASMH’92’s thoughts, as well as the curiously titled “Special Initiative”’s timeline.

(Click here to continue reading…)

Rubby Agrabar, the nickname of the brown boy on whom I had a MASSIVE crush at the Academy, was the product of a family that allegedly lived and died by Consumer Reports. Not content to simply keep up with the Joneses, they had to outdo them one Suburban Wagoneer, Boy Scout Patch, & Brown pre-med student at a time.

The last I heard of Rubby was from fellow Grant instructor Schmeer during college. Apparently both were at the same party on the Brown campus.

Rubby: Oh, you go to Yale? Do you know a girl named ANP?
Schmeer: Half-Asian amazon from Indiana that likes to run around naked?*
Rubby: (laughing) I’ll take that as a yes.

Adolescent Serious Crush (as opposed to the fleeting variety) aside, this cutie quick 180-second vid by comedienne V. Nathan reminded me of this one-upmanship and made me laugh … and wish I could have a baby that grew up to look like the Bee-hive-nani or Chinkara.

Click it & check it!

* I can explain… all of us used to bridge jump and spin around on the Women’s Table and go to Pundit Parties in the buff … It was all in good undergraduate sexually repressed fun.