Retirement

My father asked me a few days ago over the phone, "So what's retirement like?" "Boring," I said, laughing. "But it can be fun." I'm not retired. I haven't even started working yet. I'm a 21-year old college student, and I've been studying in Northern Sweden for the past five months. Everyone knows that studying abroad is not usually the most academically rigorous semester you'll ever have. After all, the purpose of the whole thing is to experience a different way of living, a new culture. Some students choose to go to the bathroom in a outhouse in a third world country for six months, others choose to live like royalty in English-speaking countries. Many study abroad programs, though, lie somewhere in between the outhouses and the royalty, but none sell themselves under the title, "Retirement." The following are reasons why my study abroad experience in Sweden was like being retired.

I had nothing to wake up for in the morning but still set my alarm clock for 8 am everyday. Even though I knew I had nowhere to be, I wasn't going to let myself fall into the pattern of sleeping late and staying up late. If I reached that point, I would enter the category of lazy teenager, one which I have long hoped to abandon. So my alarm clock would go off at 8 am every day, and I would push the sleep button 6 times until it stopped going off half an hour later. At this point, I would fall fully back to sleep and not wake up until 9:30 or 10.

I only had to be somewhere once a week and that was a lot to ask. My classes only met once a week or once every other week for an hour and a half. For the first few weeks, I looked forward to going to my one class in the middle of the week. I would do all the reading, make sure I had something to offer to the seminar, and get there early, ready to make an impression on the teacher because we were only given a few chances to do so. After the first month or two, though, I started to get really angry when the one day a week rolled around that I had to go to class. My corridor mate and I would whine about it all morning and on the way to campus. Most likely having not completed the assigned readings, we would sit through the seiminar with disgusted looks on our faces, waiting for the hour and a half to pass so we could carry on with our lives.

The grocery store was often where I would run into the most people I knew. Every time i walked into the store, I would look to the check-out lines to see who was there that I knew, and there was almost always at least one. I would also have long, personal conversations with friends in front of the shampoo section or the potatoes, and in line to pay for my single onion or head of broccoli. When I met up with friends outside of the grocery store, we would often tell each other who we saw in the grocery store that day. Apparently I wasn't the only retired college student.

I watched a lot of TV. In the States, I watch so little TV that I'm always hearing, "Oh my god you haven't seen that?!" about some commercial or new series. In Sweden, though, my friends and I watched so much TV that we could recite the songs of at least five different Swedish commercials, and we each had our favorite. I also had the chance to catch up on a lot of American TV, most of which was terribly outdated. Married With Children. Friends. Oprah. Made, Dirty Jobs. Next. Unfortunately, I will still be behind the times when I get home.

I was very unproductive with my free time. When you live a busy life, it seems like you could do so many things if you had more time. Big readers like to wear that t-shirt that says, "Too many books, too little time," but if they had only lived in Sweden once in their life, they'd know that more time does not equal more books. I am ashamed to admit that I did not read a single book during my study abroad time, and this is only the second piece of writing I have even attempted.

You're probably wondering, then, what I have done. Somehow, i was only truly bored for the first week or two. After that, I got used to it. It becomes normal to wake up slowly, spend forty minutes eating breakfast and watching TV, to spend the whole afternoon walking around outside with friends, eat some more and then go to bed. I have to say, though, that I would have been bored if I hadn't found a group of really close friends. Even though our boring lives didn't always provide us with new things to talk about with each other, just being around people from different countries was entertaining enough. If we ran out of other interesting cross-cultural comparisons to make, we would resort to talking about languages. And if that wasn't entertaining enough, we started drinking.

To better answer my dad's question about what retirement is like, then, I have to say, like everything else, you get used to it. And is that not the point of studying abroad? To be forced to adjust to a new way of living? If it is, then I think I have successfully completed my task, but unfortunately, the other half of the deal is that you have to return to the old way of living, where college students are never mistaken for retirees.

New method teaches foreign language students to learn from hard of hearing senior citizens

AUG 11 – Local language-learning experts, urging community schools to adopt the latest in teaching methods, held a press conference yesterday to cultivate support for their new movement. Involving senior citizens in the foreign language classroom, language-learning expert Marion Schorr told the press, rapidly heightens the students’ auditory and verbal skills.

“In the past language teachers have used audio tapes and videos, but now we have found that there is no better alternative for this type of learning than bringing the elderly into the classroom. Partaking in exchanges with people with impaired hearing allows students to grasp pronunciation and understand more at a quicker pace.”

The board of experts went on to explain the details of the method. Having completed three case studies, University of Plainside Professor Janet Diere explained that the presence of the elderly in the classroom created an environment that required elevated levels of volume.

“The students were forced to shout and repeat the answers to their daily activities and the foreign language-speaking senior citizens were forced to scream at each other. This way the students could more clearly hear syllables and inflections as well as learn through repitition.”

In a Russian class at the University of Plainside, student Harry Taryle explained that he enjoys this new method, noting that it adds a unique element to the language-learning experience.

“Everyday the old people come in super early with their walkers or their canes and take a seat in a row of desks facing the rest of the class. The second they arrive they have something to say to one another so the shouting and the, ‘What?!’s begin immediately. Almost everything that is said has to be repeated at least twice so we just sit back, relax and listen to the old people until the lesson starts.”

When asked about his experience as a participant in the new language-learning method, Boris Stein replied, ‘что?!’ (English translation: ‘What?!’)

The conference did not conclude without opposition though. The nature of the method spurred some unrest among AARP rights leaders. Near the end of the conference a few shouts were heard from AARP representatives Conrad Hermann and Gayle O’Connor.

“This is unjust and discriminatory! Innocent senior citizens are being taken advantage of and used for their disabilities! We will not stand for it!”

A reply about the participation being voluntary was heard from a member of the board, but the AARP representatives could not hear the response, leading to the conference’s closure.

Häagen Das Wouldn't Be a Bad Name

I remembered today that I wanted my parents to name my brother Nicholas. I was only three when he was born and nothing but unhappy about the whole idea of the guy coming into my world, but I was convinced that Nicholas was the perfect name for him. I remember climbing on top of the upstairs bathroom toilet to whine to my father about it in the same way I whined about everything from wanting something from the ice cream truck to having a bad dream. I have no idea why I liked the name so much, but I can only guess that it was either because Nicholas was the only boy's name I knew at the time or because I had already experienced the effects of having an odd name.

My father didn't want to name me Annika. Growing up as a Rudolph, he knew what it was like to be the kid with the funny name. I didn't understand why until I heard the classic Christmas carol "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" for the first time. I couldn't help but laugh at my father. What could be funnier than imagining your own father as a reindeer with a very shiny nose? So in an attempt to avoid all possibly connections to unflattering popular culture references, my father wanted to stay away from all uncommon names. For whatever reason, though, some of my mother's Swedish friends had the power to convince my parents that Annika was going to be my name. (I assume it had something to do with my mother's attachment to Sweden and my father's obsession with being married to a Swedish woman).

So I was born Annika and my brother was born Alex, contrary to some people's opinion. By the first grade I hated my name. Kids, teachers and parents alike could not pronounce it correctly and being the shy kid that I was, it was utterly difficult to open my mouth and whisper the correct pronunciation. I've heard my name mispronounced at least a dozen different ways--like it's a disease of the anus, like it's the name of a Japanese-made VCR, the sister company of the outlet mall store Mikasa, and a strange diminutive of the name Nick (aNICKa).

But that's only when my name is read. After introducing myself, I've heard a variety of mispronunciation that are even harder to correct, the most difficult being when people think my name is "Hanukkah" and proceed to ask me if I'm Jewish. "No," I reply in a confused tone and then realize that they probably think my name is the name of one of the biggest Jewish holidays of the year. Eventually I or someone else corrects them before they continue calling me a Jewish holiday, but who knows if some people I've met have gone on thinking my name is Hanukkah.

Rather than just mispronouncing my name, sometimes others ask me questions about the origin of my name. The most intriguing question was posed to me by a boy probably around the age of 14 after first meeting me and my two best friends. "Did your parents mean to name you Monica but forgot the 'm'?" he asked me as sincerely as possible. I didn't know what to say. There were two things wrong with this question: first, he was assuming that my name was spelled completely phonetically and like a vacuum cleaner brand and second, he was assuming that my parents are idiots that can't spell. But there was no possible way I could portray all of this to this gangly, preteen creature in a polite, concise way, so I simply replied, "No," and everybody laughed.

But as most would assume, I've grown into my name and have the confidence to correct people when they mispronounce it. Over the past few months at least a handful of people have informed me that they know a little girl named Annika, so it seems the name is on the rise and on its way to leaving the category of weird names. But today when I told my brother that I wanted him to be named Nicholas, we contemplated the idea of it, and thought nothing of it. Not much would be different--he would probably feel like the same person and others would see him as the same person, although I would have been a happier child. When he announced that he wishes he were named Hans, though, I took it back. I imagined him going around wearing nothing but tight, black turtle necks and reminding people of Hansel & Gretel or even the foreign ice cream brand Häagen Das. It wouldn't be a bad name for him though--as long as he's okay with being forever associated with candy-eating Germans and things like that.

Warts

My father is a lawyer. Sometimes he says he wishes he were a history professor, but I think that's just a cover-up for the odd jobs he really enjoys.

For the past few weeks I have been convinced that I have grown a wart on the side of the pointer finger on my left hand. As far as I know I've never had a wart before and I used to think all the kids who had them were repulsive. In elementary school I prided myself in not having any warts, somehow believing that I was of a superior disposition for never having warts. "I"ve never had a wart," I would always make sure to declare when one of my friends would begin to complain about the wart on their foot or their toe. "Really?" they would ask surprisedly, giving me that ultimate sense of superiority about my hygiene as I emphasized it again with a confident, "Nope!"

Even when I spent my high school summers as a day camp counselor, I would quickly investigate which kids had warts and note to never hold their hands. A few times a sweet little Kathryn or Daniel would spend the majority of the day in tears for a variety of possible reasons (missed mother, wet pants, stolen toy, lack of Ritalin) and I would not make any consolations concerning the hands. With a quick flick of the wrist, I learned to shake a kid's hand out from underneath my palm and leave the scene before mayhem erupted.

Now that I look back upon it, though, my uppity attitude about warts could have really just been a cover-up for my ignorance about the world of warts. Many of my friends shared horrifying stories with each other about their wart removal visits to the doctor. After leaving school midday, they would return to an onset of curious peers, "Did it hurt?!" they would ask, unable to stay seated in expectation. "Not at all," the confident, wart-free peer would answer, gaining a sense of confidence that had the ability to bury mine, leaving me unable to come to terms with the fact that maybe I really wanted to have warts.

But now I think I finally have one. My mother thinks I don't (she's even more disallusioned about my family's hygenic superiority than I am) but my father has been right on it. After dinner tonight he dragged out his what must be five year old wart removal kit and began the demolishing process.

After retrieving the kit from the upstairs bathroom, he stumbled down the basement while I sat in the kitchen awaiting the process I have been coveting for so long. I wondered what it will be like. Will there be dry ice? Will it sizzle? Will it be hot or cold? Will it hurt? What if it hurts? Maybe I'm not tough enough for this. Maybe I'm destined to never have any warts because I can't handle the treatment. Damn it! I can never beat the warty people! Not only do they have better stories but they're also tougher!

My father returned from the basement still in search for his magnifying glass so that he could read the instructions on the bottle. They're not in the kitchen either. He asked my mother to read the directions but she couldn't find her reading glasses so after five minutes of reading/magnifying glass commotion, my brother grabbed the bottle and announced what we were to do. Wash, Apply. Wash.

My father took the little brown bottle away from my brother and started to unscrew the cap. Here it comes. He started toward my finger with the application brush.

"Wait. Aren't you supposed to wash the area?" I asked.

My father made a disgruntled sound.

"Dad. Don't we need to wash it?" I repeated.

"Nah," he said as he intently dabbed the solution onto the knuckle of my left pointer finger.

I waited. No sizzling. No smoke. No disappearing wart. He screwed the cap back onto the bottle and announced in a doctorly way that we had to repeat the process daily for as long as needed.

Well maybe it's still a wart then, I thought. If it's not gone yet that still gives it a good chance of being a wart.

"I just don't think that's a wart," my mother said as she grabbed my finger and inspected it, bringing it close to her face.

In an attempt to avoid my mother's doubts, I escaped the room with my still bumpy finger. Maybe it isn't a wart but if it's not, I don't know what it is and I don't think it's going away. It's not a pimple (believe me I've tried popping it and there's nothing in there). But if whatever it is stays there forever, it will always remind me of my false sense of hygenic excellence and my father's passion for odd jobs. Who needs law school when you can remove your children's warts? It most definitely means something to me.

Welcome

This is Fragment Studios, my blog and a literary adaptation of Figment Studio, my sister's design company. Visit www.figmentstudio.com if you don't like to read a lot. If you like colors and lively shapes, you should visit her site, but if you like dull, flat black and white characters, stay here. If you want to buy custom portraits, go to her site. If you want to see a picture of my sister, leave. If you are fashionable and like to wear artful t-shirts and amusing jewelry, go there. So in conclusion, if you are nerdy, colorblind, insipid, cheap, nonvisual and unstylish, STAY HERE!