Kim Priore

Well, week 2 of school is officially over, and I am exhausted.  Mostly, it’s exhausted in that really good, really accomplished-feeling way.  There’s quite a bit of sleep deprivation in there too.  I definitely spent the home stretch of the week running on pure adrenaline and caffeine.  At one point I had the random urge to take up smoking (don’t worry I didn’t) which in the past I’ve only felt compelled to do when I’m drinking, or in the middle of finals.  I’m not sure what that means.

The most exciting development of the week was a guest lecture in my Development class on “Monitoring and Evaluation” which is a fancy way of saying “what I did with my summer vacation, and apparently did all wrong.”  Ok well maybe not all wrong.  But as it turns out there’s a whole profession/industry/career path within Development that involves that type of thing.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is, it doesn’t appear to be the career path I’m on.  I can see it, it’s like it’s running parallel to me, and I just can’t quite make the leap.  So if I ever decide to go back for a second Master’s degree (and you really never know when you’re going to have $40,000 lying around and not know what to do with it) I know what I’ll go for.  But so then I said all of this to my work study boss (also known as the professor I’m TFing for, also known as random lady who thinks I’m smart and really wants to get me a job, for reasons passing understanding) and she goes, “oh I should introduce you to my neighbor, he’s an independent consultant and just got contracted by the Clinton foundation to evaluate their HIV/AIDS program.”  What?!?!?  So like, here I was questioning my decision to go to Harvard and not Fletcher, and yet if I wasn’t at Harvard, I wouldn’t have met Rachel and had all these cool opportunities, not to mention the ones she still wants to find for me.  At any rate, it’s just been this weird feeling of things coming together incrementally, and this vague sense that like even though I don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing after May, I’m cautiously optimistic that I’m *sort of* on the right track. 

So that brings me to Friday night.  My loan money came in (wohoo!) so I got to do a little shopping this afternoon after lunch with my mentor, always fun.  On both counts.  And since then I’ve pretty much been staring vacantly at the tv.  I was going to try and rally and catch up on some work or reading, but I think I might just give myself a pedicure and take a bath and turn in early.  I got myself a small pizza for dinner, which I used to feel was really pathetic, but now I just chose to think of it as an emblem of how I’m really ok with who I am, and I don’t need to pretend that I have plans to go out and party it up, I’m really ok with the folks at Liberty’s pizza knowing that I’m heading home to spend Friday night by myself.

But it’s a good reminder to me too, that at the end of a busy week where I feel like a rock star and like I’ve definitely made Harvard my bitch and I’m just kickin’ butt and takin’ names…it doesn’t mean a whole lot of you don’t have anyone to enjoy it with.  This is not to say that on this particular evening I would have gone out anyway (no guilt trip to anyone intended!), but I guess it’s good in the midst of our “40 Days of Community” (insert eye roll here) to remember that I can have the longest most impressive resume in the world, but if my friends are hurting and I don’t take time out to be there for them, or to pull my weight as a member of this family and this household, then I’m really not that great at all.  So my goal is to keep all of that in focus. 

Happy Friday everyone!

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So school is off and running with a bang!  I started my Development course at Tufts last week, and this week started the rest of my courses at the good ol’ H-bomb.  So far I like them, I’m taking one on the theological and ethical issues raised by Hurricane Katrina and other catastrophes, and one on the struggle within Islam between moderates and extremists.  And I have to take an Old Testament class, to fulfill a requirement.  Because apparently 9 years of Christian school and 4 years as a religion major at Wellesley does not give me enough of a grasp of Scripture.  But whatever, it will be good to brush up, and obviously from a much different perspective than like, Mr. Schaaf’s junior high Bible class.  All of this in addition to my 2 jobs, which combine for a total of 20 hours a week.

Then I get an email from my work study boss, offering me a position as a teaching fellow in one of her courses, it’s on religion and international politics.  It’s an amazing opportunity – TFs are by and large PhD students, not lowly Masters’ candidates.  It would look good on a resume.  And the money’s good.  But Kim, you say, don’t you already have 2 jobs and a full course load, and isn’t this basically like taking a 5th course, since you’d have to do all the reading so as to be able to lead a discussion section?  Why yes, I say.  So Kim, you say, clearly you would be insane to take on this additional responsibility.  Well, I say, you clearly did not go to Wellesley.  You don’t share this pathological (yes that’s the correct use of the term) need to overachieve.  You believe in things like free time, a social life, having fun on the weekends, getting 8 hours of sleep a night.  I am very envious of you.

The thing is, this is very 21-year-old Kim of me.   Very Wellesley Kim.  A lot of you did not know Wellesley Kim, you have come into my life since.  You probably wouldn’t recognize her.  She was lean, hungry, ambitious, motivated.  She survived on like 4 hours of sleep a night.  29-year-old Kim, by comparison, has grown fat, lazy, complacent, and her goal is to marry rich.  I feel like I’ve suddenly traveled back in time.

Ultimately, what it comes down to is that in addition to wanting to feel *slightly* better about myself when I read the Class Notes section of the Alum Magazine and read about classmates who have like gone to law school, hiked Everest, started their own nonprofit, gotten married, and had kids, it really is an amazing opportunity and too good to pass up.  This is IF it all works out, and I hope I’m not jinxing it, I feel like someone in the administration is going to get the paperwork and realize this prof has overlooked the fact that I’m a total moron.  And besides, if the Sox made the playoffs this fall, I wouldn’t be getting much sleep anyway.  So really I figure I’m just using my allotted playoff sleeplessness for a slightly less noble cause. 

At any rate, if you don’t see much of me over the next few months it’s because I’m passed out drooling on a book somewhere.  I’ll pencil you in for some time in January.  Feel free to stop by the house, please bring coffee.  Thanks.

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I know it’s been a month, and my grace period of being “The Bereaved” is coming to an end…I know this is the point when people start to expect you to suck it up and move on, to not require the extra attention, to just be normal again.  (A special shout-out here to my friends that recognize that 1, I’ve never been normal, and 2, I just need a little more time to process things in my way.  So anyways, I realized I never did this, I wanted to post the remarks I made at my Nana’s funeral, just for those of you who knew her, and for those of you who didn’t, maybe you can have just a glimpse of why this special person leaves such a big gaping hole in my heart and my life.  So here it is:

My job this morning is to give some words of remembrance for my Nana Phyllis.  So I thought that I would do just that, that I would offer some words that come to mind when I think of Nana.

 

The first is Imagination.  When we were little, my brother and I loved going to Nana’s house because it always meant playing games.  We played school, office, hair salon, had tea parties, and drank ginger ale from goblets pretending it was champagne.  These games were never treated as frivolous, or as something we did in the other room while she tended to more important matters.  Nana was right in the thick of our fantasies with us.  Nana’s house was a place of imagination, where we could be whoever we wanted and go wherever we wanted and where we learned how to dream.

 

The next word is Curiosity.  Nana had an insatiable curiosity about the world around her.  She loved to read the papers that Doug and I wrote in college.  She would pour over every photograph we brought back from a trip, asking a million questions.  She taught us how to be inquisitive, and not to be ashamed of what we didn’t know, because there was never any harm in asking.

 

Music: of course, the music.  I’ll always remember sitting beside her playing our duet of ‘Chopsticks,’ or hearing her play “You’re a Grand Ole Flag” and finish with a big flourish.  She’d often say she could hear the music in her head and while she wasn’t gifted with a singing voice, she’d try and squeak it out anyway to let you know what song she was talking about.

 

Affection – Nana was always affectionate to those around her, whether it was her coworkers, family, or friends.  We joke about how she always came up with nicknames for our friends:

Nancy with the Pretty Hair, Little Shanny, My Josh, or of course my old boyfriend Ryan, who she always called Kevin, because he looked like a Kevin.

 

Independence.  Nana prized her independence, it’s why she loved her car so much, it gave her the freedom she always wanted.  And she was never anxious for me to have a boyfriend, never urged me to get married the way some grandmothers might, and for most of my life she modeled for me the role of an independent, capable career woman.  For her generation that was somewhat revolutionary, and to have her as a role model taught me to value myself for who I am, not just what I can be to someone else.  Although I still wouldn’t mind having a boyfriend.

 

Pride.  Nana was proud of being an American, proud of being from

Natick, proud to be a part of the Congregational Church.  And she took tremendous pride in her family.  Her example taught us to value where we came from and who we are. 

 

Life.  She loved bright colors, energetic music, she had no use for anything “draggy” or dark or dismal.  She knew how to squeeze every last drop of enjoyment out of the smallest things, whether it was a meal (”Are you gonna eat that?”) or simply watching my brother wash the car. 

 

One word that doesn’t make sense in the context of my grandmother is Goodbye.  Toward the end of her life when I would visit Nana in the nursing home, when it was time for me to leave, she would say “I’m not gonna watch you out of sight.”  Because it made her too sad to see me go.  And that’s how I feel today.  So I’m not gonna watch you out of sight, Nana, I’m going to remember you as you were, sitting by your piano or enjoying a cocktail at our Christmas gatherings with the VanTassels.  And I know that your imagination, curiosity, affection, pride, and love of music and life will stay with me always.  And I hope I can continue to make you proud.

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…why it is, that on the weekends, I miss my Nana and my brother and sister-in-law so much more

…why, just when I think I have someone figured out, they throw me a change-up that knocks me off balance

…why, when someone is about to say something, and for a split second I think I know what it is, it turns out to be something completely different

…how the next year of my life is going to play out…and the one after that…and the one after that…

…when I will learn to trust God and believe that he has a plan for me, and stop stressing about my future

…if I will ever be able to see myself as “God’s workmanship”

…if saying goodbye ever gets any easier

…if saying hello ever gets any easier

…if being alone ever gets any easier

“Whatever you do anyway, remember that these things are mysteries and that if they were such that we could understand them, they wouldn’t be worth understanding. A God you understood would be less than yourself.” – Flannery O’Connor

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Happy September everyone.  There are officially only 2 weeks left in my summer.  We have two important topics to cover in today’s blog post:  the follow-up call to my Haiti report the MTV Video Music Awards. 

So, in chronological order:  the VMAs.  What was up with these?  I was profoundly disappointed.  I love a good award show.  I’ll watch them all, even the kind of obscure ones they only show on cable.  And I always have fond memories of the VMAs from when I first arrived in DC and they were on the same night as our ‘welcome interns’ potluck, and a few of us trekked down to the Hard Rock Cafe to watch them since there was no cable at the intern house.  (We had the world’s worst set of directions courtesy of Spivey, but that’s another story.)  But yeah they just sucked this year.  I love Jack Black and all, but the overall production value of the show was in the toilet.  While no one captured the not-so-coveted “puppy fight” distinction (i.e. “I would not wear that dress to a puppy fight” – tm SW), even the fashions weren’t exciting.  Jessica Simpson looked like a hooker, JLo needed some darker lipstick, she looked like a cancer patient.  And I know I’m in the minority, but I’m really over Shakira.  I think that song should be called “My Ribs Don’t Lie” because she’s so skinny she looks like she just wandered out of a concentration camp.  Have a sandwich.  At any rate, when I see things like the Jackass guys on stage, it makes me profoundly sad that any of them have ever drawn a paycheck in their lives  This country is messed up. 

Anyhoo…on a much brighter note, this morning I had my follow-up call with the organization I was reporting for in Haiti.  The president couldn’t be on the call, but he told the guy who was to ask me ‘when I could come to work for BH in Haiti.’  Woo!  I was able to answer some questions and clarify some things about my time in Pignon, and then was also able to outline for him where I see myself going after graduation and what my ideal job would entail.  So that put me in a fabulous mood.  I’m feeling very Oprah.  (Shan and I have a tradition dating back to college where when one of us is having a good career day and feeling like we have prospects and options, that person is Oprah for the day, and the other is Gail, Oprah’s best friend who pretty much makes her living by riding Oprah’s coat tails.)  It’s great to feel employable.  I mean I’ll never be the Jackass guys or anything, but it doesn’t hurt to dream…

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