Family Reunion

The family reunion for my dad’s side of the family happened over the weekend. I left work and went to Penn Station to catch a train down to my parents’ house, where Bevinn, Rob, and their kids had just arrived to spend the night before heading down to Deleware the next day for the reunion itself. My Aunt Sharon and Uncle Dan had also just flown in from California (I hadn’t seen them in a couple of years) and Ann and Ray (my dad’s cousins) were also there for dinner. So it was a full house.

Though I hadn’t seen the adults in at least a year, I was definitely more eager to hang out with the kids: Erica – 8; Kelsey – 10…almost 11!!; and Colin – 12 (I've changed the names). One of the highlights from last year for me was being the “monster”. Erica was on my shoulders, Kelsey was holding onto one leg, and Tyler (who I’d see on Saturday) was grabbing onto the other. They made me walk around the lawn, Erica directing me by twisting my head violently. When I made her get down she called me “just a dirty smelly old man.”

This year I wasn’t the monster, but I was the one who had to cut up their food for them and clean up two lemonade spills in addition to playing many, many games of hot potato. We also played a game of soccer in the front yard – me, Colin, and my neighbor Joel on one side and Ben and the two girls on the other.

Colin naturally wanted to humiliate his sisters, but the two of them were able to play him pretty evenly. Joel, who’s 19, mind you, also wanted to beat the girls. He trash talked them, deeked them pretty harshly, and tried his best to pound them into the ground. Imagine a 19 year old guy screaming “YEAH! DOMINATION!” as he high-steps across the front lawn after just having juked an 8 year old girl and scored a goal. At one point one of the girls told him “you brag too much.”

If Joel and Colin had had their way, I’m sure we would have beaten Ben and the two girls really badly. But I felt bad, and did my best to let them win – and they did, 11-9. When Colin and I were paired on the same team the next day, his first words to me were “so are you gonna play defense this time?”

Before they went to bed, Erica and Kelsey stole Ben and my phones and changed the wallpaper to photos of themselves with the text "Erica rocks" and "Kelsey rocks." Maybe people will think it's strange that I have a picture of a 10 (almost 11) year old girl on my phone, but I thought the gesture was very sweet and it makes me laugh when I look at it.

The next day, Saturday, with my girlfriend in tow, we all arrived down at Bellevue State Park in Delaware. It was normal family reunion fare – lots of food, bland pasta salad, name tags, and a few awkward conversations. My brother noted that we aren’t the oldest kids any longer. We’ve been upgraded to the “young adult” category, but even so I mostly hung out with the kids.

Ben, Alice (the girlfriend, name also changed) and I took Tyler, who's 2 years old, climbing on the jungle gym. I met another kid there who told me “If all the geese in the world attacked right now, I’d run to the car and lock the doors real quick.” Tyler posed on top of the rock wall while my Dad took pictures, and then ordered my brother and I to kiss before he came down (we didn’t). He then proceeded to kill me a few times while pretending to be a pirate. Once, Alice asked him to revive me and he reluctantly agreed. Then he started ordering Alice to kiss me, which she was happy to do.

As the reunion died down, both Erica and Kelsey hugged me (without prompting from their parents) and said goodbye. Colin, hugged me awkwardly. Tyler kept saying “I wub you”, and high fived me goodbye. I also said goodbye to Britney, Tyler's sister, who is probably the most down to earth, “with it” 8 year old I’ve ever met.

Being around young family members is really fun and refreshing. I get all the fun and almost none of the responsibility, and the parents get a few hours without having to worry about their kids’ whereabouts. I hope to see them before next year, and now that I live in NYC I think there’s a real chance of that. Because even now I notice that they grow up a lot from one year to the next.

Law vs. History Pros and Cons

Law
Pros:
-Challenging work
-High compensation
-Geographic flexibility (can live basically anywhere)
-Respectable
-High-pressure, high-responsibility
-You can easily see the end results of your work (contracts, deals, laws, etc.)

Cons:
-Ridiculously long hours (at least at first)
-Drudgery
-Lack of creativity
-People don’t like you
-Deal with inept people in positions of power
-Not necessarily “worthwhile”
-Sit in an office your entire career
-High-pressure, high-responsibility

History
Pros:
-More interesting material
-Around young people
-Live on college campus (cultural events, etc.)
-Teaching/influencing people
-More diverse crowd
-Chance for work to evolve over time
-Write books
-Very respectable
-More “worthwhile”
-Summers off
-Low-pressure, moderate-responsibility

Cons:
-Lower pay
-Really hard to get a good job – might have to relocate, might never find one
-Office politics (publish or perish, tenure, etc.)
-Might have to work on subjects/methods that you don’t enjoy
-Writing tons of lesson plans/grading tons of papers
-Harder to see concrete results of your work
-Low-pressure, moderate-responsibility

Thinking about Grad School

I'm still in the same job, as a paralegal with Scholastic, that I started back in December of 2007. The problem with being a paralegal is that there's no clear-cut route to advancement. And there's the rub: I don't like my job very much, nor do any of my friends' jobs seem appealing, nor does any other job that I've come across.

And so the idea of grad school pops back into my mind. Many people have told me that I should take time before I make a decision regarding grad school. Well, it's been one full year so far, and the fact is that by the time I would end up matriculating it will have been two years. Applying to schools takes a lot of time and effort, and I'm afraid that if I don't really start thinking about it now, I'd have to wait at least another two years before getting out of my entry-level rut (the economic downturn isn't helping me here).

I've thought a lot about taking the LSAT's and going to law school, but I realized that at this point I'm not willing to sell myself out yet, if you know what I mean. My dad's a lawyer so I've had long talks with him about it, and it has never really struck my interest the way that normal graduate school has. I know it would be interesting intellectually and very profitable...but I just don't get a good feeling about doing that right now.

I'm also not totally sure about going into academia. Though my undergraduate interests were initially focused on literature, I found that as time went on my focus naturally shifted towards the historical side of things. That means, I think, that if I were to go into graduate school, I'd do it in history. But then I think about other, more classic history types (i.e. the Rachel McCool's of the world, who write 100 page senior theses and go to Cambridge) and I wonder if my interests would even lead to a job. And of course, seeing young professors’ difficulties finding good jobs makes me pause and consider the practicalities of academia.

But even so, being a professor still strikes me in a way that no other job/profession has thus far. I generally feel that I would be undercutting myself if I didn't at least make the attempt to pursue a graduate degree.

Either way, I've contacted the Dickinson career center to help me start the process of researching graduate programs. We'll see what happens.

USA vs. Argentina June 8, 2008

The trip from my parents’ house in South Jersey to Giants Stadium, where my brother, girlfriend and I had tickets to the USA vs. Argentina soccer game was, according to Google Maps, only supposed to take an hour and a half. When we stopped at Burger King after an hour and a half on the road, we were only about halfway there. The trip would eventually take more than three hours in stop-and-go traffic along the entire length of the NJ Turnpike.

Starting about ten miles out from the stadium, my brother and I (my girlfriend would be meeting us at the stadium) were entertained by increasing numbers of Argentina fans. We saw several carloads (one with North Carolina license plates) of white and blue clad supporters hanging out of their windows waving flags above their heads. I realized about that time that the light blue shirt I was wearing might unfairly portray me as an Argentina supporter. I realized immediately afterwards that I had forgotten my luggage at my parents’ house so I couldn’t change clothes.

The first USA fan that my brother and I saw as we pulled into the stadium’s parking lot a mere 5 minutes before kickoff was staggeringly drunk, leaning against the side of his car. Walking past him towards the stadium was a group of Argentina fans dressed in blue and white, bearing their flags, beating on drums and screaming chants in Spanish. We too walked past the drunkard, leaving him to his (presumably sad) fate.

After a few frantic moments of waiting for my girlfriend, Ashley, who had also been delayed by the traffic, we managed to find our seats in Section 320, Row 26, a mere 10 or so rows from the top of Giants Stadium and directly behind one of the goals. We sat down by 7:40, just in time for kickoff, and could just barely make out the numbers on the backs of the players’ jerseys.

I looked around. Our section was comprised nearly entirely of Argentina fans. I heard many speaking – or rather screaming – Spanish, and heard others speaking English. The section was nearly filled, with only a few seats here and there left unoccupied. Our section had the requisite flag-bearers and drum-beaters. I wondered why so many Argentina supporters made the trip. Maybe it was because they’re soccer-crazed; maybe because for many of them it would be their only chance to watch their beloved national team in person.

The energy in the stadium was infectious. It’s one thing to see South American fans go mad on TV, quite another to see tens of thousands of them in person. Drums pounded, flags waved, cameras flashed. Even we Americans got in on the act in the first few minutes, jumping up and down shouting “USA!” There was an entire section of red-clad US fans behind the opposite goal who belted out pre-planned chants for the duration of the game.

As far as the action itself is concerned, I’ll leave that to better voices than mine: http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/8226462/U.S.-raises-its-game-against-the-world's-best. I’ll suffice it to say that while the Argentine side was much better skilled, and their passing was jaw-dropping, the Americans played hard and kept the game competitive. Tim Howard was obviously the man of the hour, but Landon Donovan displayed presence in the center and our midfield played the Argentines evenly on the outsides.

I’d never been to an outdoor professional soccer match before, so everything was new for me: the heaving crowd emotions that ebbed and flowed constantly; the chanting; the knowledgeable fans (a particularly skilled display of one-touch passing by the Argentines drew one of the loudest ovations of the evening). What makes soccer fun to watch on TV makes it even better to watch live: the constant action, the back-and-forth, the beautiful gameplay.

My brother and I were both surprised and impressed that the US kept it even through one half. We were also pretty sure that Argentina’s constant pressure would eventually crack the US defense.

Immediately after halftime, the hot weather seemed to have gotten to the fans. We were all dripping with sweat and the constant cheering of the first half seemed to have abated in the first ten minutes of the second. However, the US began to exert sustained pressure on the Argentines, and there were fewer oh-so-close chances for the Argentinean strikers. The crowd was getting nervous. The drums beat more frantically, the chants of “USA!” grew more hoarse.

It really began to crescendo with the approach of ominous clouds on the horizon, which we in the upper deck could see clearly. You could hear rumbles of apprehension as distant lightning strikes moved closer and closer. Would the rain hold off? Would the refs cancel the game? Who the hell is going to win?

The groans and cheers of the fans grew more intense as the storm drew closer. The rain started shortly before a US corner kick somewhere around the 70th minute. The Argentines parried the US attack but conceded another corner. The rain grew thicker, the lightning flashed brighter and more often. Again the Argentines parry the US strike, and again they concede a corner. The crowd, awakened by the rain and defying the lightning and thunder, began to dance and roar as the US took yet another corner that was once again parried.

I don’t remember whether Argentina conceded yet another corner kick because by then everyone in the stands was jumping up and down as the rain poured down and the lightning and thunder really raged. The game was a backdrop as the fans alternated between shouts of “USA!” and “Argentina!” In a near-frenzy, we cheered after every lightning strike, after every rumble of thunder, after every good play and every bad one.

We were on our feet for the last twenty five minutes, screaming until our voices went hoarse. I don’t think anyone really noticed the final whistle; we were still cheering the lightning strikes.

When we did realize that the players had stopped playing, I was disappointed it was over. I was happy with the outcome, though. I think if either side had won there would have been much more animosity. The US, losers of their past two friendly matches against international powers England and Spain, proved that they might be real contenders at some point in the future. But then again, we’ve been saying that for years now.

Another immediate post-game reaction is to make me want to go see more international soccer games. I’d love to watch the US men play arch-rival Mexico. But this game will always be special. At some point during the thunderstorm, I remember looking around at the rest of the section. Everyone was soaking wet, jumping up and down frantically. And we were all laughing.