Nursery University

I sat on the couch, flipping through Netflix, as the four-year-old I babysat came into the room and complained that he could not sleep. Sighing, I told him to lie down on the couch, but to close his eyes and try to fall asleep. “What movie could put a child to sleep?” I questioned myself as I settled on a Frontline documentary on Chinese adoption. He fell asleep within ten minutes. Once it ended, I continued to flip through Netflix and discovered what has since become one of my favorite movies: "Nursery University." This documentary on the insane nursery school admissions process in New York City intrigues me and concerns me. The filmmakers follow a few families through the process: a Harlem family, an IVY League couple from the West Village, and an interracial, affluent, and sarcastic Upper East Side couple. As the title suggests, applying to these nursery schools causes the same level of stress as applying to college, which makes the movie extremely relatable for me. I too face the same fears as the couples when they explain their “Pipe-Line to the IVIES” theory: that the best nursery schools lead to the best kindergartens, which lead to the best primary schools, which lead to the best high schools, which will inevitably secure a child an acceptance to Harvard. Though I did not attend an exclusive nursery school, throughout the college process, I too must take into account which college degrees will lead to more job opportunities for me in the future. Though these ambitious parents worry about securing their children spots at Harvard, they too consider job opportunities. As they scribble notes down at admission counseling sessions, they often ask how going to a certain school will help their children secure high-paying careers. I laughed as the admissions counselors indulge these parents, explaining that such a nursery school education will help the child develop skills that will help him/her prosper in future careers, such as a stock broker, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, or the president. I would hope so, for $20,000 a year for a two-year-old. As I observed such scenes, they reminded me of my parents at college admissions sessions, how they would quiz the admissions counselor and would then obnoxiously talk me up after the session. Seeing other parents compete for admission into nursery schools made me realize how normally my parents act (relatively, of course!) and made me grateful for the simplicity of the preschool admission process in Chagrin. Once I finished the documentary, I called my parents, who lived in New York for many years, and told them about the film. On the other line, my mother scoffed: “Don’t laugh, Meghan! That process is so stressful, and it could have been us!” Yes, it might have. But instead, I now attempt to reach the Ivies without ever traveling down the “Pipe-Line.” I wonder to myself whether this theory has any validity. Maybe in New York City; but it only seems plausible there.  Although I may joke about these parents, I know that if I lived in New York and had a child,  I would surely buy in to it. I can almost imagine myself sitting in a preschool admission session, viscously scribbling down notes as I look around and eye my competition. I, like the parents in the film, would go to great lengths as I agree with the filmmakers’ message, a quote which interviewees stress repeatedly: “There is nothing more important than your child’s education.”        

Sick as a Dog

The slobbery hound walked up to me in the park today

His owner tried to control him, but alas, he would not stay.

He jumped up and panted, his vile breath tickled my face

Then he promptly licked my lips, and dragged his owner on a chase.

I watched the dog run away and sniff another’s tail

I watched as he mouthed a decaying squirrel on the trail.

Of course, he stopped to lick himself and to eat some waste

Balking in disgust, I wished the memory would erase.

I have often heard people say that the dog’s mouth appears quite clean

Yes, the cleanest, I repeated, trying to forget what I had seen.

Most dog owners, like me, have experienced a time in which their dog has lovingly licked their face. Of course, once the dog has walked away, I often find myself considering all of the disgusting dead animals, garbage, etc. that a dog encounters and consumes on a daily basis. These thoughts often cause me discomfort and disgust, reactions I express in the poem. For example, the appalled speaker notes the dog’s “vile breath” and consumption of “waste” (3, 7). The negative connotations of “waste” and “vile” directly characterize the disgusting nature of a dog’s mouth, arousing disgust and discomfort. Furthermore, the speaker observes the hound as it mouths “a decaying squirrel” (6). The revolting diction of “decaying” evokes pathos and appeals to the repulsion of dog owners, who ignore the reality of their dogs’ hygiene.  In the end, I refer to the cliche that the dog’s mouth proves its cleanest part (9). This statement juxtaposes the previous revolting characterizations of the dog’s mouth and thus creates irony.  Though I do not challenge the science and statistics behind this claim, as I watched my Springer Spaniels drag a dying baby rabbit to the porch last month, I wondered about the cleanliness of their mouths. Overall, I do not advocate ignoring a dog’s love, but I do encourage humans to acknowledge what their dogs eat—anything and everything.  

Compulsive Line Leader

Dear Meghan ‘06,

Do you remember two years ago, in 4^th grade, when you had an obsession with leading the line? Every day, you would try to finish your work fifteen minutes early so you could clean up and stand by the door and wait for people to line up behind you. The teacher punished you, in the end, and made you the official line ender. Of course, you never accepted the job—you cut past the rest of the students and walked at the front of the line. I roll my eyes when I think about all the time I spent and wasted waiting at the door just to lead the line. Sadly, this childish behavior sparked an unfortunate trend and inspired an obsession which still afflicts me today. Admittedly, I tend to compete when it comes to academics. In my defense, in what other area can I compete? My fifth grade art teacher gave me my first C as I glued “sloppily”, so goodbye art! I dry-heave on mile runs, so I have eliminated athletics. So, I focus my time and energy on my coursework and checking off elements of the mental list of awards competitive academics “should” win. And now, after four years of high school, I have achieved much of what I have wanted to achieve, but I still feel unfulfilled. Maybe I feel this way because I have transformed myself into an antisocial workaholic. Maybe I feel this way because the brief glory of an award fades. Or maybe I have lost sight of myself.   Whenever I see someone who has won awards or has scored well on a test, I strive to achieve what that person did. Unfortunately, in the process of trying to mimic another, I lose sight of myself and devalue my own accomplishments. So, Meghan, remember throughout middle school and high school that you have your own talents which will, in time, bring you success. Do not let this desire for success define you and hold you back from forming new friendships and enjoying life. Do not, as you did in 4^th grade, waste away in front of the door for fifteen minutes just to fulfill your desire to lead the line. Spend a little more time on the homework. Study a bit more. Read. Even talk to friends. In time, the teacher will instruct you to clean up and stand at the door. She will turn to you and call you over and ask you to lead the line to the library. Your time has come. Lead that line thirty feet down the hallway with pride.  

Best,

Meghan ‘13

If you're not the lead dog, the view is always the same.

Whitewash

Happy Hour

As many people often remind me, I act like an elderly person. Of course, friends and family attempt to tip-toe around the term—my parents call me “a woman ahead of my time,” while some friends call me “geriatric.” But, they all imply that despite my outward appearance, inside, I look like an uptight woman with thick bifocal glasses and a walker. Perhaps I convinced them of my old age the time I called up South Franklin Circle and asked to join their gym. They told me I could, of course, so long as I do not disturb the residents during their noon water aerobics courses or during their power walks on the treadmill.  However, I never joined as it cost too much and I despise parting with money—another quality of the elderly. Perhaps I convinced them of my senior tendencies when I expressed my desire to live in the South Franklin Circle community down the street from my house. In my defense, who would not want to live down those quiet streets with paved walking trails, and have access to the many recreation rooms? However, I think my extreme(ly) elderly eating schedule sealed my fate. Confession: I eat dinner at 3:30pm. Once I arrive home from school, assuming I do not have to work or tutor, I begin preparing my dinner—usually a rice or pasta dish. Once the water boils and I have made a pathetic attempt at sautéing vegetables or cooking spaghetti, I sit down, and my mother joins me at the dinner table to watch me eat. Another confession: I sit on an orthopedic cushion at the dinner table. Before my readers begin to judge, I must share that I have a tailbone condition. My coccyx, instead of facing inward like most people’s, faces out at a 90 degree angle, a condition my doctor called “unprecedented.” I prefer to call it highly evolved, of course, especially as I shamefully sit on the orthopedic cushion my grandparents ordered me from one of their senior citizen catalogs. Once my mother joins me at the table, we discuss what we watched last night on PBS. “That was a great episode of Antiques Roadshow, last night,” I prompt her as we chat about the ornate grandfather clocks and homemade quilts that, you guessed, the elderly brought in for valuation. Then, of course, the conversation turns to my favorite show, Downton Abbey, a show which Lauren Lang told me her grandmother also loves, as I finish the last of my dinner around 3:45pm. I quickly clear my plate and clean up the pans before I head up to my room to begin homework. “Be sure to come downstairs at 7:00,” my mother calls to me as I begin walking up the stairs, “Wheel of Fortune is celebrity-version tonight!” I must confess that I have not embellished in my attempt to make this daily routine extreme. I do sit on an orthopedic cushion; I have tried to join the South Franklin Circle gym; I do eat dinner at happy hour. I live an extreme life, at least, an extremely elderly one. So, I need not exaggerate, for if I did, I would wear a Life Alert necklace and carry a walker, and I am much too young—Wait! I have fallen and cannot get up!

Driving Around

I tutored today at the Chagrin Falls Park as I do every week, and I spent the first few minutes of the session talking to my student, a fourth-grader, about his work this past semester and his goals for this semester. After a few seconds of thought about his plans to improve academically, he concluded that he will act kindly to his friends. “Really?” I asked him, “Being nice is wonderful, but it will not get you an A.” He shrugged and decided to turn in more of his assignments. As I drove home today, remembering I had a blog to write, I spent time contemplating this past semester and my experiences as a blogger. I thought back to my first post, my personal favorite, “An Unlikely Pilgrimage.” As I drove, I imagined a critic, sitting in front of his/her computer and suddenly stumbling upon meghanjudge.blogspot.com.   I could see how he clicked on the post with such interest. He then raved over the descriptive writing, the strength of the voice. What a great idea, a quote wall! How intriguing that quotes can bring her closer to herself, reaffirm her interests, and help her understand her personality! No person other than Meghan Judge could have written that post, he typed away at his computer, it truly expresses her individuality!   What can I say? I like to embellish. I continued driving a bit, and to my right, a forest ended and opened into a little clearing where a person walked his dog. As I distanced myself from him, he shrunk to the size of a child. How interesting that he looked so happy to have reached the clearing, just like a pygmy who has escaped in the mist, the subject of my most quirky blog post, “Pygmies in the Mist: Part Deux.” Perhaps the post interests me because it makes me wonder about my family, especially its sanity. Reading that blog helps me to understand why my ideas seem abstract and strange and “too creative for appreciation” (as my family would call them); I inherited the gift. I suppose I value this post most because it expresses the importance of following my passions, even if I never achieve recognition and success.  Recognition does not matter to my uncle, aunt, grandmother, and the man who walked his dog, only the escape creativity and the pursuit of one’s passions provides. So, as I finally passed the retirement home across from the cemetery and pulled into my driveway, I thought back to Claire Kampman’s comment on my latest post about taking risks and discovering myself, “Crossing Bridges.” She had reflected on her recent admission into her choice college and the new fears she faced and the answers to new questions that lay beyond her reach. Taking the risk to cross new obstacles and gaining the confidence to cross them without fear leads to fulfillment, she claims, and I agree. I must understand my character and have the determination to not waver in my passions. I must have the confidence to follow my dreams, whether or not they will bring me success. So, maybe the child I tutor outsmarted me. He may have read my blog and seen past the embellishment, the metaphors, the similes, and understood my messages better than I do. Perhaps kindness provides him with the passion and confidence to continue on in his life, to escape the mist, to cross the bridge, to complete that pilgrimage to self-discovery. But still, I beg him to turn in his assignments.  

Crossing Bridges

I began my college search early, after much persuasion from my mother. She insisted that I needed to visit universities beginning in eighth grade after I had shown her a list of twenty-five schools from Boston to DC. I suppose she worried that my college search would mirror my search for a Communion dress in the second grade. She took me to six stores, where I constantly complained that no store sold the perfect non-gaudy, non-flowery completely white dress I had envisioned. Maybe she also feared that I would only like schools that would not accept me. To this, my father, ever the optimist, always responded: “Beth, stop worrying. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” So, a few years ago, my mother and I traveled to New England, where we visited Yale. We dragged our suitcases from the parking lot to the front door of the hotel, a Marriot across from a Mr. Chicken where we observed several drug deals—all just a block from Yale’s campus. As we approached the door, I warily reported to my mother, “Look. You need a pass-code to enter the hotel. Nothing good happens at a hotel where you need to enter with a pass-code.” Once she assured me that no one would murder us in our sleep, we left the hotel and walked toward Yale’s bookstore, a grey building set against the grey Spring New England sky. We walked at a brisk pace as a homeless man appeared behind me, his run-down bike rolling beside him. Suddenly, he screamed at me in his psychotic voice, “Going to Yale, you super white b****?” My mother grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the Barnes and Noble, muttering to herself that she would never send me there, that much-too-liberal school. I sighed, for I, already a sophomore, had yet to cross the bridge my dad had assured me existed. In fact, I deeply worried that I would not find a school I even liked. However, I need not have fretted, as I encountered a bridge on my last college visit to Penn. My cousins, aunt, and uncle joined us on the campus at nightfall and we walked around admiring the dark sky, the brick buildings, and the trees which hung over our heads. Few people joined us as we walked down the winding paths which disappeared from sight onto the other side of the bridge that separated the two ends of the campus. When we reached the bridge, my seven-year-old cousin James ran towards it, grabbed my hand, and looked up at me with his blue eyes. “Do you think we should cross?” He asked me, his eyes searching my face. I turned around and looked back at the rest of the group, who walked a bit behind us. In that moment, I smiled, for I had found the bridge I needed to cross.  I imagined that on the other side, beyond the cement, a tiny figure would appear and gradually would enlarge until I could make out its features and recognize my face. I could see that person walking with friends on a quiet night, never worrying whether she would cross the bridge when she reached it. She never attached too much personal meaning to that bridge, never realized it could connect her past and future. She never trembled in its presence like Gatsby as he reaches out to the unattainable green light. She merely saw a bridge, a concrete structure, which connected two ends of campus.  Nevertheless, I looked back down at my cousin and squeezed his hand, realizing that fantasy could never exist. Even if the school accepts me, I will always stand at the top of the bridge and wonder whether I should take a risk, ignore the shouts of hoodlums and the worry that the pass-code will not protect me while I  attempt to attain the unattainable. “Yes, James,” I told him, “Let’s cross.”