Santa's Helper

      This weekend I volunteered at Holly Hall where my duties involved herding children into a line, asking them their names, and directing them to Santa's lap when their turn came. Even the simplest of Christmas elves should have been able to complete this task with little difficulty, but for some reason I encountered a complication. The problem was that I kept mishearing the kids' names, my worst slip up transformed "Brian" into "Maryan," as in a combination between "Mariah" and "Ryan." I don't think it was entirely my fault that I kept getting the names wrong, kids have a tendency to mumble or lisp, but I also could have realized that Maryan is not a name and that its close cousin Brian is a very common name. Most people probably would not attach much importance to this incident or try to read anything into it, but as an AP English student I can't help myself. I would like to think that the reason I blindly accepted the name Maryan is because I am so tolerant and accepting of diverse names. The less flattering explanation is that I simply have bad hearing, or a strange mental block when it comes to names, but I would like to think I have gained a new sensitivity to unique names after reading The Namesake. At the very least it may have desensitized me in regard to unusual names.

Some kids were pretty upset when Santa butchered their names because of my misinformation

Charting Your Own Course

I would like to start this post by saying that this is without a doubt the best week of the year; it is only two days long, one of those days is an early release, and two of my classes are doing nothing but watching movies. What is more remarkable than the fact that one of those classes is AP English, is the similarity between the two movies. We are watching The Namesake in English and my Sociology class is watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding, both movies follow the lives of people whose parents have very specific expectations for them. However, these people all react to these expectations in different ways. Here is what I see as the three main examples.

Gogol resents the cultural identity and expectations his parents push on him, especially during his youth. He rebels against them and rejects both his family and his culture during the first few decades of his life. Unfortunately, this rebellious course leaves Gogol with feelings of regret and loneliness.

Toula takes another approach; she goes along with her family's expectations to the point that she becomes a doormat. Toula feels just as unhappy and defeated as Gogol, until she finds the strength to take control of her own life.

Ian does not come from an immigrant family, like Toula and Gogol do, but his family has its own culture, including the expectation that he will become a lawyer. Although Ian still loves and respects his parents, he decides to diverge from their plans for him and become a teacher instead of a lawyer. Ian retains a positive relationship with his parents, but he also gets to do what he wants with his life, and although his life is not perfect Ian seems to be the happiest of the bunch.

Watching these movies has helped me better understand the conundrum Gogol faces: how to live his own life without betraying his family. The conclusion I have come to is that people who find themselves in this  situation need to realize that they have the right to pursue whatever lifestyle makes them happy (so long as it does not harm society). But people should not pursue independence or fulfillment in a way which disrespects or hurts their family because this will only increase the conflict and difficulty in their lives.

And He's Going to Marry Her?

      Although the film adaptation of The Namesake remained fairly true to the general plot, it did take a few liberties in its adaptation of the novel. The moment that stands out in my mind is when Gogol first meets Moushumi, because he walks into the room and actually gags. I can't really blame him for this, the wardrobe department certainly had a field day with Moushumi's appearance, and I thought that scene was hilarious. In fact, I kept thinking about it later during swim practice and I nearly choked on pool water because I was laughing so much. But this scene didn't happen the same way in the book, where Gogol seems to remember Moushumi with almost complete indifference: he didn't have anything to say to her but he wasn't gagging at her either. At first I didn't think this was a big deal, movie adaptations stray from their literary inspirations all the time, and this didn't even seem like much of a change. However, as I thought about it more, I realized how weird it is that Gogol is going to marry Moushumi. How could you marry someone who gagged the first time they met you? This makes me curious to see what is going to happen that so completely turns around Gogol's perception of Moushumi. I feel like there needs to be more to this turnaround than was in the book because there he only needed to go from indifference to interest, in the movie he needs to somehow go from disgust to interest.

Deja Vu

      While flipping through my book in pursuit of memorable quotes, symbols, and the like, I came upon a quote that I really relate to. The quote in question, "It doesn't bother him that his name is never an option on key chains or metal pins or refrigerator magnets," brought me back to my own childhood when "Kaleigh" also never appeared on such things and, unlike Gogol, this always bothered me (67). I remember reading this quote weeks ago and having the same recollection, now that I have a blog I would like to revisit it. I am not sure why this bothered me so much; after all, it is not as though I really wanted a tacky plastic keychain with my name on it from every gift shop I ever visited. But still, I can remember five year old, seven year old, ten year old Kaleigh searching through countless displays of tacky plastic keychains, searching the "K's" and then the other letters-just in case it was misshelved- and coming up empty handed every time. At first this was a source of genuine disappointment, I even remember resenting my brother when I inevitably found the "Kyle" keychains. Later, it became a sort of game to see if I could ever find my unusual name, and to this day I still find myself searching through those keychains, looking for it. Even more elusive than the "Kaleigh" keychain is the answer to the question, why do I care that it isn't out there? It turns out I am much better at analyzing literature than my motivations for obsessively searching through gift shops for my name. Thus, I do not have a conclusive answer for that question. The best thing I can come up with is that I liked the idea of being in a strange place, away from home, and stumbling upon a piece of yourself, even if it was only your name printed on a cheap piece of plastic.