Snow, Hearts and Cheeses

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Emigration Diary: Snow, Hearts and Cheeses

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Posted February 20, 2013 by Jenny Foxe in Ramp Specials

When it snows in Ireland, it causes mayhem; buses stop running, mail stops being delivered, and people have difficulty getting to work and school. I always thought because Long Island regularly gets a lot of snow that it is well prepared for it. There are thousands of snow ploughs. The roads get gritted nightly in very cold weather and most people have cars or winter tyres that can well handle the snow. It became very apparent with last week’s nor’easter storm, dubbed Nemo, that even well-equipped Long Island can’t handle two feet of snow when it falls altogether over just a few hours.
Driving was impossible during the blizzard. We had what are called white out conditions; it wasn’t possible to see more than a few feet ahead. Cars suddenly became stuck and people were forced to either abandon them or wait in them until they were rescued. Thankfully, we were all able to leave work early, so by the time the blizzard was in full force we were all safely home and warm. The next day was an eye-opener. It looked beautiful outside. The skies were blue and the sun was shining.
The reality of getting anywhere hit us pretty hard though. Our street had been ploughed which meant we could drive on it but only after digging away the mountain of snow that the plough had deposited at the bottom of our drive, as well as the six by two feet that had settled in front and on top of the car. Digging snow, for the record, is a great way of banishing bingo wings.
The smaller snow ploughs were unable to function in that amount of snow and even some of the bigger industrial ones got stuck ploughing the expressway. We managed to get to some nearby hills to take the kids sledding. Now, that is really fun! Except of course for having to drag the sled and sometimes the children on it back up the hill every single time. The school couldn’t open after the weekend because so many roads were still impassable that it wasn’t safe for the school buses. My children were pretty happy about this until they realised that they will now have to lose a scheduled midterm because all of their snow days were used up after the hurricane. Everything is back to normal again now but the snow remains, frozen solid now, everywhere but the roads. Walking anywhere is completely out of the question and I’m really glad I have good boots.

Valentine’s Day is celebrated a bit differently here than in Ireland. It’s not merely a celebration of romantic love between adults, there are Valentine’s cards for friends, siblings, parents, grandparents and children. If you like someone at all you are supposed to declare this with a cardboard pink heart on the day. My kids came home from school with bags full of notes, cards, pencils and stickers from their classmates both male and female. There are a lot of candies and lollipops available in the stores for this purpose but as there is a ban on food-sharing in our school district, parents have to get creative. I felt bad because I hadn’t supplied my children with anything to distribute. How was I to know though? I’m thinking of making some St Patrick ’s Day goody bags for them to give out to their friends to compensate for my latest cultural faux pas.

We also experienced the wonder that is Chuck E Cheese this week. Our Kindergardener was invited to a birthday party there and I let his big brother invite a friend his own age to play with. I was expecting a play centre with climbing structures and slides similar to ones we frequented in Ireland. It was not like that at all.

Chuck E Cheese is Vegas for kiddies. It consists solely of arcade type games; think off-season Bray on steroids with everything at eye level for the vertically challenged. You buy tokens on entry and the kids feed these into machines such as the Winning Streak Wheel and Deal or no Deal in return for tickets. There is no skill or physical exercise involved at all. It merely provides kids with a comprehensive introduction to gambling and slot machines. I was stunned. The tickets can then be exchanged for worthless plastic prizes. None of which are any good.

The birthday celebrant gets to go into a machine like the one in Crystal Maze that shoots out a whole thousand tickets which he can then exchange for a big prize like a colouring set. On the half hour Chuck E comes out and grushies tickets about causing instant wrestling carnage. Then there is cheap ketchup flavoured pizza. The kids had a lot of fun but I found the whole experience upsetting. We won’t be returning there in a hurry. I’ve scratched it completely off my potential birthday party venue regardless of my kids’ yearning for a go in the Ticket Blaster machine.
I expressed my dismay at the set-up to another parent. ‘Welcome to America!’ she smiled wryly. I guess that says it all.

It is what it is.

Emigration Diary: It Is What It Is

Posted February 6, 2013 by Jenny Foxe in Ramp Specials

I had an interview in the city the other day. Well, not so much an interview as a four hour observation of my suitability to be a teacher in NYC. It included role plays, a five minute teaching sample, a maths test, a written test and a group presentation. If they do deem me to be built of the right stuff it looks like a very interesting program. After an intensive period of training over the summer, I will be given support to find a teaching position in a high-need school in NYC. I will then simultaneously teach and study for a Masters in Education in a CUNY college. It sounds like it will be hard work with many tough challenges but potentially very rewarding.
It struck me while I was watching the other candidates’ teaching samples that I wasn’t the only one with an accent. Even people who had been brought up in New York had varying accents, some of them with a foreign lilt. It really was a very diverse bunch of people who had decided to apply to this program that has the overall mission of increasing academic achievement within the city’s more disadvantaged schools. Diverse people from diverse backgrounds, many experts in their fields with absolutely no previous teaching experience. What the selectors made very clear they were looking for was potential, idealism and commitment.
Many years ago, back at the turn of the century, in fact, I applied to do a bridging course in Dublin that would allow me adapt my Arts degree to an Education degree which would allow me teach elementary school in Ireland. I was refused admission to this course on the basis that I was one grade short in the Irish language in my leaving certificate. I wrote a carefully worded letter, outlining all my previous experiences with TEFL, school workshops and afterschool projects and relevant courses that I had already taken and even offered to spend two months in the Gaeltacht before the commencement of the course and to sit the Irish exam again. The same day I posted that letter I mailed a response to an ad for teachers in an international school in the Gulf. About two weeks later, at 9am I got a phonecall from a rather rude lady in the college. ‘What are you doing, writing me letters?’ she shrilled ‘You’re not eligible and that’s that.’ Exactly two hours later, I wiped away my tears to answer the phone to a man with an intriguing foreign accent arranging an interview in the Westbury Hotel for the position in Qatar. I hung up the phone and decided then and there that if they were willing to give me a chance and my own country wasn’t, I would go to wherever it was. I wasn’t planning to teach Geography. That was the first time I emigrated out of Ireland.
Here I am now again. My first excursion away was always temporary. It was a two year contract which I extended to three. I could have stayed longer but I really felt it was time for me to leave. I actually wanted to come here to the US then but I knew it would take a while to get a visa and I wanted to come legally. I wasn’t really counting on the ten year wait but I managed to accumulate some people in those years that I insisted on taking with me. They’re all happily in their routines of school and work here now. I haven’t found it as easy as I thought it would be to break into an exciting career. I’m looking at this program as a big chance.
I may get it I may not. I have other interests I’m exploring here that were repeatedly shot down in Ireland too. I certainly did my best on the day. The thing that stays with me though is that they at least gave me the opportunity to prove myself. As they say here quite a bit, ‘It is what it is.’ which I find a whole lot more comforting and easier to take than a dismissive Irish ‘and that’s that.’