Mercy Mercy Me

I walked out the door this morning with the intent to ride 50 miles to Galveston from Market Square with a group of cyclists I had never met (with the exception of the guy who invited me).

Ten miles away from our destination, a car went into the shoulder lane of Highway 3 and hit the cyclist that fell behind in my pace group.  I didn’t know his name. I didn’t know if he had a family. I didn’t know anything about this guy, except that he was training for the MS 150 and that his bottom was also hurting after the first 15 miles.

I learned that about him an hour before the accident, when he caught up to the group I was in. We rode side-by-side for a few miles and tried to catch a break from the 10 mph headwind beating down on us.

When I turned around to see how he was catching up after an uphill bout we had, it happened in slow motion, as cliché as it may sound.

I have cycled for almost seven years now, and you hear all sorts of stories. You hear about crashes at the beginning of rides, where the cyclists pile up on one another, and there are broken collarbones and bent wheels from left to right. You hear about cyclists getting clipped by the side mirrors of cars and open doors. You see the bikes painted white at the side of the road with “Ride In Peace” signs.

These sad stories linger in the back of your mind, but you don’t think much of it.

Then you see it happen, less than 100 feet away from you. You run past the car with the cracked windshield, blood and tissue on the headlights, and you see the pools of red. You hold their hand and keep their head still, and you wait an eternity for the ambulance to get there. Then you have to call their loved ones to tell them something awful happened, which is easily one of the hardest things anybody could ever have to do in their lifetime.

He’s going to be okay. His helmet saved his life. There is no doubt about that.

I promise, from this day forward, that I will NEVER ride a bike without a helmet, no matter how short the distance. I promise to ALWAYS double check for cyclists and pedestrians when I am driving. This wasn’t a cause for the accident today, but I also promise NEVER to text while driving.

These are all things I know I'm not supposed to do, but I'll admit that I slip up every now and then. I'll check my phone at a long stoplight. If I'm in a huge rush, I'll half ass looking both ways before making a right turn at a red light. I don't wear my helmet when I ride in Critical Mass at the end of the month because a lot of other people don't. As I said, though, I promise that I will be a much more alert and responsible cyclist and motorist. 

I hope you will do the same, and keep someone from having to deliver the worst news imaginable to a victim’s parents.

Jitterbug

I typed this up at 2 this morning.

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I start my new job at the Houston SPCA and I cannot sleep.

It feels a lot like the first day of school.

Do I remember where to go? Do I have everything packed already? What if they don’t like me? What time should I leave the house? What if they laugh at my lunch box?

From kindergarten through graduate school, I went through about 38 first days of new semesters. You’d think I’d be over it by now.

It’s daunting. It’s exciting… It’s making me anxious.

In all honesty, I anticipate seeing some pretty awful things when sent out to the field to report and take photographs. I imagine there are things that will make me question and curse humanity, and things that will break me down. However, I expect that there will be many more things that will restore my faith in goodness and continue proving that my work is worthwhile.

I haven’t started, yet, and I already take pride in what I do. When I talk to friends and family about where I’m headed, I hear stories of their rescued pets, and their links to the organization. For instance, after my barbell strength training class at the gym, my instructor congratulated me and proceeded to tell me about her two rescues and how she will post anything I sent to her about events and adoptions. Two of my rock-climbing students already offered to volunteer on the weekends.

Every time I think of it, I grin from ear to ear like a loon.

--

I sent out 73 job applications in 2013. Well, I have receipts for 73 applications in my inbox, so the actual number may be a tad higher.

I graduated with two master’s degrees in May, and completed my undergraduate degree cum laude and had memberships to three different honors societies.

I have four and a half years worth of retail experience. I also worked four internships throughout college and graduate school, from Houston to Palestine to DC.

I designed annual reports, advertisements, invitations, etc. for non-profits and an art gallery. I helped coordinate more than 300 volunteers nationwide for the National Iranian American Day of Service (with one other person). I wrote letters of inquiry to organizations such as Lynda.com and United to help Together Liberia train and equip Liberian journalists so that they can rebuild their country’s infrastructure and democracy. Overseas, I worked on a peace-building project between Israeli and Palestinian olive farmers, mill operators, and business owners. In Houston, I worked with local non-profits and learned everything there was to social media and electronic press kits.

I didn’t get paid for most of these things.

No, no. This is not bragging. I merely listed my qualifications. (I can link you to an interactive resume if you are interested.)

Seventy-three applications resulted in three phone calls.

The first was for a job that required a bachelor’s degree and two years of experience. At the end, she couldn’t give me a solid reason why they needed someone with two years of related-work-experience salary history. Apparently, working full-time for free as an unpaid intern is not as valuable.

The second was for a paid digital internship in Washington, DC. They traveled a lot and the department was new, but the organization was prestigious. They offered me the position two days later because they couldn’t wait to let me know. They offered me $8.50 an hour.

When I lived in DC, during my last semester of graduate school, I lived in a one-bedroom 650 square-foot apartment with two good friends. We each paid $500 apiece. I shared the living room with Zoha, a journalist struggling to find work as well. After we left, management bumped the rent for that apartment up to market value, which was about $2,100 a month.

Needless to say, I was going to starve on $8.50 an hour. In fact, I was so embarrassed by it that I couldn’t even tell my parents what they offered me. I was getting paid more to work at the gym, teaching rock climbing and cleaning toilets, than this opportunity to go use my degrees.

The last call was with the Houston SPCA and they set up an interview. After the interview, they called me a week earlier than anticipated to offer me the job. My immediate response was something along the lines of, “This is a full-time position AND you want to pay me? Best Friday ever. I gladly accept.”

Adventures in English

This year, I want to read and write more, so here I go.

The responses to my last post made me realize that people actually read what I write. As wonderful as this is, it also shows me that I cannot just ramble on aimlessly and that there should be substance to what I write.

I acknowledge that my last blurb was a low point, and I promise if you decide to stick around, it will be much more uplifting from this point on. We’ll laugh, discover new places, disagree on things, learn, love, cry a little, and grow. Why the hell not?

This post includes another bit from my memoir, and I decided to call this chapter “Adventures in English.”

Enjoy.

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Babajoon Buys Crack

Baba racks up points on a credit card that can be used in a Sony Rewards Program. If he goes to the website and enters the final phrase from Wheel of Fortune, he gets bonus points.

My grandfather, who will be referred to as Babajoon from this point, has a very particular schedule, which includes watering the plants twice a day, eating copious amounts of peanut butter mixed with honey, praying, and watching YouTube videos featuring animals or babies. Well, eventually, Babajoon incorporated discovering the final phrase for my dad into his daily routine.

Every weekday, when Babajoon’s alarm goes off, he will hurry over to the TV and watch Wheel of Fortune for the final phrase. Once he reads it, he will jot it down in his planner and he reports to Baba later on.

One day, as Baba was leaving my grandparents’ house, Babajoon said, “Oh, I have the final phrase!”

Baba responded, “That’s right! Well, what is it?”

“Buy crack.”

“What?”

“Yes, buy… crack.”

“Buy crack?”

“Yes! Buy crack!”

At this point, Baba is thinking that the regulations on what they put on television have gotten very lenient. While he processed everything, Babajoon repeated “buy crack” in the background.

Finally, a confused Babajoon explained, “You know, where you park your bicycle.”

“Bike rack. Oh my God. BIKE RACK.”

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Como se Dice ‘Kayak’ en Español?

In Cancun, the resort we stayed at offered free activities throughout the week, including kayaking at certain times.

After breakfast one day, we marched down to the beach and Baba went ahead to wave down one of the employees. He approached the gentleman and slowly said, “Excuse me, señor, do you know where the kayaks are?”

“Um. Ka-yak?”

“Oh, well you know… Uh… Kaaaayak.”

At this point, he began making motions from side to side with an invisible paddle.

The gentleman shook his head and responded, “No comprendo… Ka-yak?”

“Um… Kaaaaaayyyyyyaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkk…”

Baba began careening down an invisible river in his sturdy invisible kayak, and steered with his equally invisible paddle while making whooshing water sounds. He actually started sweating because of the anxiety and his movements.

My mom, sister and I observed this spectacle from afar, watching my dad gyrate in his slowly sinking kayak. I imagined this was what it would be like to watch Ray Charles play charades with a mime.

After a few minutes of this madness, the guy laughed and said, in perfect English, “The kayaks are right over here, man.”

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Mamanjoon is Trying not to Give a Shit

My grandmother, who will be referred to as Mamanjoon from this point, is a very sweet woman with boatloads of maternal instincts and an incredible turnaround time for witty comebacks.

When you first meet her, you notice that she resembles Grumpy Cat, and everyone wonders why she yells all the time. First off, I think the permanent scowl resulted from raising four rowdy boys and having two bad knees. Second, there is only loud and louder on that side of the family. We are always shouting.

Also, it is important to note that Mamanjoon doesn’t speak English. To this day, I still do not fully comprehend how she received her citizenship. From what I understand, they told the system that she had a learning impediment, which made her unable to study for the test. I suppose her smile and continual nodding helped (she does this whenever cashiers talk to her).

My senile Uncle Jamal enjoys teaching Mamanjoon words and telling her that it means something completely different.

One day, I came home from school and my uncle told Mamanjoon to show me what she learned today. She said, “Chiyeh (what)? Ah, I… don’t… give me no shit.”

“Nah. Behgoo (say) ‘I don’t give a shit.’”

“I… doon… give me a shit.”

“Nah. I don’t give a shit.”

“I… don’t… give… a… shit.”

“Afarin (bravo)!”

I don’t give me no shit.

That’s the only full English sentence Mamanjoon knows to this day. Well, more recently, Jamal attempted to teach her, “You son of a bitch, I don’t trust you.” For whatever reason, though, that one was much harder for her to catch on to.

God Bless America.

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Mothers Know Best

My mother is adorable and I love her to bits. However, popular culture swept her away and now she uses literally in almost every sentence in every wrong way possible. It drives me nuts.

Top instances where Mama used ‘literally’ incorrectly:

“He literally took the words out of my mouth.”

“In 15 minutes, I need you to, literally, take the banana bread out of the oven and put it on the range, then turn off the oven.”

“I literally slept all day and night and afternoon.”

“I literally cannot stand when she does that.”

“This bread is literally too hot.”

-

As an added bonus, I'll include a bit that includes technology. One time, my aunt accidentally put her phone on T9 and, for the life of her, could not figure how to turn the damned thing off.

My cousin came home and tried to figure out where her parents had gone, especially since they were not answering their phones. Finally, she received a text from her mom that said, “We are watching taking of trains.”

Massi responded, “The Taking of Pelham 123?”

“YES”