this morning i was sent down to the second floor to make TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY copies of a 43 page study guide thing. i of course only managed to make 72 copies before the paper started jamming like a mofo. so aggravating!
while i was uber-busy sitting there watching the copy machine do all the grunt labor, i read a book that came in the mail yesterday to our department. it is entitled, “The Inner World of the Immigrant Child” by Cristina Igoa. so maybe there’s just something wrong with me right now but this book which was just talking about teaching children who come to america from foriegn countries and how they have problems learning how to fit in was making me cry! in front of the copy machine! it wasn’t even particularly heart-wrenching. i was just feeling so badly for all these immigrant children and how they are lonely, solitary little beings who don’t get to play on the playground or speak english. simple, emotional prose is apprarently a sure-fire way to get under my skin. goddamm easy waterspout. ahem let me give you a few gristly passages to reflect on.
“While working with the children from war-torn countries, I recalled my own experience of dislocation from one country to another during wartime and empathized as they spoke or wrote about the horrors of war. I was born in the Philippines and was 5 years old when my family left the islands two months before the end of the World War II. Manila was still occupied by the Japanese when our entire family boarded a U.S. Army transport for the United States. Aboard ship, wartime regulations were in force. All the women and small children were confined to one side of the ship, the men to the other. We had constant drills on what to do in case of submarine or air attack. We were told not to throw pieces of paper over the side of the ship because the enemy might track our progress by seeing bits of paper floating on the water.” (5)
“Lonliness is the deep, deserted feeling that a person experiences when he or she feels different, alone, and separate. It is an inability to be in touch with one’s self–a feeling of disconnectedness. Sometimes, the deeper the loneliness, the more intense the sadness, unhappiness, and desire to find some connection with life or with oneself. Loneliness, said a little Filipino girl, is “a bear with no friends.” (54)
