Mothers' Day

Emigration Diary: Mother’s Day

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Posted May 14, 2013 by Jenny Foxe in Ramp Specials

It was Mother’s Day here last Sunday. I saw my children for approximately twenty minutes in the morning, received my cute handmade cards and then I went and worked a double shift in the restaurant on a crazily busy day. Mother’s day is big business here, just like all the other Hallmark Holidays. Everyone in town and their mother seemed to be clamouring for a table in our petite establishment. There are hours of the day that passed in such a whirr of bread baskets, table numbers and skirt steaks that I don’t have any recollection of them at all. And this is my little housewife job, I have a gnawing sense of fear that things are about to get really real.
I have a list an arm long of online coursework to do, assignments to submit and documents I have to gather by June. I am at a disadvantage because I have to sit a multi-subject teaching certification exam that covers such subjects as American history and social studies that I never covered in school not having gone to an American high school or college, so I have to study that too. My children still need to eat nutritious meals and need clean clothes to wear. They need help with their homework and to be brought to the various birthday parties and play dates they are invited to. The training in the summer is six weeks from 9 to 6.30 an hour and a half away from home. I will hardly see them at all in that time. The pool is to be relined and opened this week. Will I ever get to swim in it? George has been constructing a brand new little kitchen, weekend by weekend. At the moment I can’t foresee a time when I will actually get to cook in it. I have no idea what my schedule will look like in September. I just hope I can work out some kind of work/life balance that keeps everyone happy and home life running smoothly.
It seems that if I want the American dream to come true I’m going to have to spread myself very thinly. I am aware that other working mothers juggle this stuff all the time, it is obviously doable if a little overwhelming and I’m confident that I’ll somehow figure it all out but re-entering the rat race to this extent after eight years of being home with the kids is damn scary. This is what I wanted though, isn’t it? This is why I uprooted my family and transplanted them across the Atlantic Ocean. I’m going to do my best to make a go of it with my fingers kept tightly crossed that this is The Right Thing To Do and hey, with a bit of luck and a lot of hard work I may end up with a few more letters after my name and the resources to fund my children to earn a few when their time comes. It gives me confidence that my youngest child draws me cheering under a blue sky. I hope he still sees me like this next year.

Acceptance

Emigration Diary: Acceptance

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Posted May 1, 2013 by Jenny Foxe in Ramp Specials

I was accepted to the NYC Teaching Fellows to train to teach special education. With one refresh of Gmail, I was offered not just a job but a career. I’ve to train in June and find a teaching job in a NY public school by September. I’ll be simultaneously studying for a Masters in Special Education in a CUNY college. It is by no means to be an easy number but I’m hoping it will be very rewarding. In just over a year here I will have a salary I don’t think I would ever have been offered in Ireland.
There are a few things I miss though, probably the biggest one being decent radio. Flicking through the stations here at any given time all I hear is Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Metallica, Pink Floyd or Pearl Jam. All great bands with great songs but when they’re on constantly on several frequencies they start to grate on the nerves. There are a few Latino and R&B stations too, but I’m not that desperate yet. At home I usually listen to Pandora, which plays exactly the music I want to hear but lacks the companionship live radio gives. I tried using the Irish radio apps but the time difference is too disconcerting. Listening to DJs commiserate with those stuck in home time traffic over lunch or being lulled to sleep while I’m cooking dinner doesn’t work for me. Also, the daily uproars about issues I know and care less and less about makes me feel less like I have radio companions and more like I’m living on a completely different planet.

I spoke to a guy from Dublin who has been here for 25 years. He told me a sad truth about being an expatriate. He said that I will always be a foreigner here. I will be completely accepted and welcomed but I would always be known and thought of as ‘the Irish woman’. He also said that the longer I stay away from Ireland the more foreign I will become there too. The less I will feel like I belong there and I will in effect become nationless. My kids, on the other hand, will be completely American in ten years. At the moment, I still refer to Ireland as ‘back home’. I still make comparisons between prices. I still think in euro and the metric system and centigrade. When I’m driving I sometimes find my left hand searching for a gear stick and even though I ask the attendant for gas it’s because I noticed the car needed petrol. I do feel these subconscious happenings slowly changing. I don’t have to convert Fahrenheit in my head to know if the kids need a jacket or not anymore. I know my weight in pounds, the date with the month first and I can refer to people’s pants without smirking now. I don’t think I’ll ever respond to the word ‘fanny’ with a straight face though. There are some things that just sound plain wrong.
I’m guessing that my new career will speed these changes in me up a lot. There will be whole new worlds of people who simply won’t understand me if I don’t adjust my language and pronunciation accordingly. I’m finding it all very exciting now that I was accepted to the fellowship. I may well be half way down the road to national identity limbo but I certainly feel like I’m in the right place right now.