01 March 2009

Culture clash

Wednesday 25 February 2009

Mother and I drove up to the beach house last night so that we could have an early start this morning for my appointment. Georgian Court is a Catholic women's college in Ocean County, probably the closest campus to a beach in all of New Jersey and definitely-- by statistics-- the safest one. I had read over all their stuff and decided that in spite of all the Catholic influences-- they have nuns on campus-- I like it. For what it's worth jessy likes it too, which may be a good sign that she'll follow me there. But she's not allowed to have a day off from school for MY college visitation and so she's not here with us.

I drove the Regal, up to the Ferry terminal, up the Parkway, and today up Route Nine to Lakewood. We arrived a little early and were shown to a very pretty waiting room at the admissions office. Both Mother and I were in skirts and tights and sweaters, typical for both of us though I wore a pretty cute pink-and-black striped skirt and white sweater with my leather patchwork jacket and grey pumps. We sat with three other girls and their parents and listened to the school's presentation. Several times Mother caught my hand and squeezed it. I know she is excited about seeing me go off to university somewhere. It's what she did, but it's also that since I am not her actual child she hasn't had me round so long as to miss me. I am sure when Lisa goes away she will feel something a lot different. For example, I know Daddy hates the thought of it-- he would rather have me stay home till I become a forty-something spinster writing stupid romance novels... and he has said exactly that, more than once. Personally I am ambivalent about it all. Maybe Mother's enthusiasm for my university career will energise me. I really don't know yet.

We were given a campus tour by a very sweet girl with good manners and excellent diction who wore snug jeans and a school jersey. She seemed to embody everything good about the school itself, both pretty and pleasant as well as polite and proper. I suppose that was a good influence on me, then. I will say that Mother's accent, though mostly English, gave her away as Australian and since most Aussies are Catholic this seemed to make sense to the admissions people. And once or twice we were asked for our last name and someone knew who Daddy was. My being his daughter then began to hold some weight. Of course we cannot expect much from financial aid. Daddy has trust funds set up for all of us that have matured as we have, and mine is just about able to cover the whole tuition in cash. But we have applied anyway and found that Georgian Court offers scholarships for 'college-preparatory' study and also for church involvement, even if it's not a Catholic church. I also have come with letters of recommendation from HOH, my old school in England, and also from our church rector there who wrote about my organising a children's Epiphany pageant the year I turned 16. The people at Georgian Court were impressed by that and asked if I want to study for a schoolteacher. I said I don't know.

Actually I am inclined to study English, but I really don't know what I will do with that. Will I teach school? Will I take a graduate degree and teach at university? Will I go into journalism? Mother never applied her degree in English beyond writing her journal and hundreds of letters and the odd article or two... but she is a happy homemaker now and doesn't need to do more at this stage of her life. I am not anyone's nanny-- nor am I inclined to be, much as I love little ones-- and I do not have any grand penchant in my life at all. Listening to these other girls today made me feel like a profound nothing. They all have grand schemes for their futures. Somewhat sceptically I wonder how many of them will amount to anything in the way that they think they will. I mean, what is accounting? --but counting someone else's money? What is 'computer science'? --I don't even know what job that would be. What is business administration? --but becoming trained in a management job you might not ever have the experience to deserve?

I am sorry for how this sounds but I promise you I am very clueless about anything regarding my future.

I do have to say that Lakewood, where the university is, is a very funny community. From what we saw of it, there seems to be a large Mexican neighbourhood on one side of Route Nine and a positively enormous Orthodox Jewish community on the other side. One the one sides, idle Mexican men stand round street corners like the workers in the Gospel story waiting for someone to call them up and hire them for the day. On the other side Jewish men all in black stride rapidly about on some business that keeps them out of doors on a cold winter's day. Neither community seems to work very hard at anything-- they've all got too much time being outside in plain view doing, well, nothing. I wonder who pays the taxes in this town!

(I hope it's not the university!)

Mother and I had some errands to run and so I drove us over to the shopping arcade after our appointment. We had plenty to eat-- the admissions people are positively lavish with food and apparently feed everyone at every event. At the food market Mother needed the 'little blue box' as she calls it and I wanted to pick up some conditioner as I had brought the only bottle I had at home and it's run out. Whilst we stood in the checkout line her phone rang and she handed me some money and stepped aside to report to Daddy about our visit. A young Jew in his black clothes stepped up behind me. I could not tell if he were 16 or 21-- they all dress the same. But he was young and so gravely serious that I was nearly afraid of him. To be rid of my anxiety I said hello to him when we happened to meet eyes.

'Hello,' he replied, nodding more than he spoke.

'Is this place always so crowded?' I asked, merely for conversation.

He only shrugged and then looked away as though I were not worth any more of his time. That kind of hurt, you know-- I am not a monster and will always be friendly to strangers, even people who are markedly different from me. I just believe it's a way to bridge divides, you know. But the young man did not seem to care. I thought maybe that was because his belief system tells him to not meddle with Gentiles-- that's a terrible way to think but it's all I came up with at the time. And I did not like the thought. My belief system is the way of the Good Samaritan, to accept and respect all people regardless of their race or creed, in the same way as I would want to be respected by them. That means I say hello to people I don't know-- yet-- and I will help anyone who needs me. In that way I don't judge.

One thing about us girls, however, is that we can always tell when someone is checking us out. It's not such a difficult skill to master-- you first rule out your own ego and then sort of focus on people's eyes, and you can tell what they think of how you look. I usually get guys looking at my chest. To avoid feeling totally humiliated I usually amuse myself by saying something completely esoteric and profound to see if he can even hear me. Usually he cannot. Guys have a very narrow band of attention... it's about as wide as a girl's hips and doesn't allow for much past that.

The Jewish guy behind me was looking at me. I found that terribly hypocritical-- he will not exchange pleasantries with me, but he will look down at my short skirt and my legs in the white tights and have some kind of thought about me. Of course the girls my age in his community don't dress like I do. They're all in cute little button-up black jackets and calf-length black skirts and black socks and low-heeled black shoes. And they keep their eyes down when a guy looks at them. I didn't keep my eyes down. I looked right at his head till he looked up again and realised I had seen him looking. But he didn't blush. He didn't even flinch. He seemed to regard it as his right to check out Gentile girls in short skirts as though we don't matter. He doesn't have to safeguard my reputation or treat me with respect. He can just look, and imagine, and he doesn't even have to apologise for that because his creed only applies to other Jews. A Gentile is an outcast, a heathen-- any unclean thoughts about me don't count as sin because, since I don't matter, anything he thinks about me doesn't matter.

I am sorry if this sounds prejudiced. I know a little about the Orthodox faiths from my evangelism study at my old church, and I won't pretend to be an expert on any of them. But I do know that most of them consider themselves as set apart by God, for some special treatment, and that it is their responsibility to keep themselves 'unstained by the world'. To them that means not mixing up with nonbelievers in social situations. They don't go to parties, they don't go to the beach, they don't go to concerts or anywhere they might be exposed to outside influences. I find that cowardly and foolish. Jesus scolded the Pharisees when they attempted to correct Him and His disciples for eating with unclean hands. He told them that nothing that goes into a man can defile him, only what comes out of him can. I could go to wild parties every night of the week and sit there, sip tea, and talk with other people about the Lord's work in my life, and would that be a sin? But if I were go to church every day of the week, participate in ECW, teach Sunday school, and attend evangelism seminars and Bible study whenever it was held, but take drugs and sleep around and lie and condemn God in the rest of my life, I would not be a Christian.

People online have asked me why I go into questionable chat rooms, and this is the reason. I challenge those people-- have I ever done anything wrong in those rooms? Jesus went and sat with sinners and tax collectors, because it was there that His influence was needed. Nothing anyone says to me in a chat room can defile me, only what I say to other people can. I remain unafraid of outside influences. I am not the frightened little Jewish guy in the market at Lakewood. I am stronger and better than that. I am a Christian.

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