Hell's Chicken

2011-10-17

angst

“We overcome the barriers of meat to come into the world and desperately cried for milk.”

“We all spend our lives between hopeless moments and moments of deep peace.”

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adorable

1. There is a law against buying a single bunny in Switzerland. “Why?” I asked my Swiss student. “Because they would be lonely otherwise.”

2. “When I first saw these Aladdin shoes, I thought they were sleepers for indoors.” -on Toms shoes.

1. I had the students write a paragraph about someone successful. Oprah, various sports stars and political leaders were profiled. Finally my Chinese-Spanish student gets up and begins “Jesus is the most successful person in history…”

2. A week or so later we engaged in a discussion about the ethics of one sperm donor, 150 children, based on the article by a similar name in the NYTimes. This led to a discussion about gay people having children. One Catholic student stood up and shouted, “it’s wrong, according my religion, it’s wrong!”

3. The same day as this discussion I was on the train home and a woman stood up and asked people to buy her art—stenciled words about Jesus. “The alphabetical name of Jesus Christ,” she said.It seemed like a wretched take on the past few weeks in class—here are the letters, spell things, write about Jesus, do whatever you want, take the subway.

2011-08-31

This is a mosque in Xinjiang, the Western-most province in China, so it’s really Central Asia.

The other memorable mosque I’ve been to is the one in Hebron. So, I don’t have a photo of that one.

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Teaching

Today my class had 6 students, one from Brazil, one from Italy, one from Turkey, one from Colombia, one from Korea and one from France.

Italian: What are the core aspects of your religion?

Turkish, she had the Italian’s full attention, his piercing eyes were transfixed on her face, wrapped on all sides by fabric…without a moment’s pause: believing in G-d, believing in angels and…

I spaced out for the rest because my mind shot straight up to the angels, floating around the Sistine chapel ceiling, milky whites, peaches, mint greens, cherubic and lavish in their home in the sky in Vatican City, which hovered above a mosque, deep reds and blues, ornate from the ground up, prayer having seeped into its wooden columns, Persian rugs, mats and, the movement of Islamic prayer, prescribed and aligned, the most ephemeral thing, hanging in the air between the walls.

Everything moves so quickly when angels fly and Muslims pray in the same building.

2011-08-29

So there’s this old woman who I see a lot at school. She’s usually
sitting on one of the really comfortable couches in the halls and
lounges, muttering to herself or yelling on the phone… all in
Hebrew. She ‘s got grey hair, over which she wears a church-going hat.
She’s got fat ankles with little stocking socks on them, and in
between total bag lady dresses. She’s older than all the other
students, and she’s different, because, well, she’s Israeli.

So today I’m in the lounge during the break eating a granola bar and
getting crumbs all over my dress and just making a conscious effort to
let them all fall until I’m done. She’s in there, across from me. And
I realize we’re both staring at each other.

“I’m sorry, I like the way you look,” she says.
“it’s okay…” I say and then (in Hebrew) “you’re Israeli, right?”
her: (in Hebrew) “yes, where are you from? “
me, Hebrew: “from new York, but I speak a little Hebrew, I lived in Tel Aviv.”
her, Hebrew: something I couldn’t understand and I assumed she was
asking if I was also a student at the school, because it sounded like,
“are you one of us?”
me, Hebrew: “I’m …a teacher..” (and then English) “Speak slowly please”
her, Hebrew: “but are you… (one of us)…Yehudit?”
me, Hebrew: “yes, I am.”
her, English, and beaming: ” I just really like the way you look so I
look at you. “

Fuckin’ brilliant.