A Philly Who is Ready for the Race

The weather in Moscow is only now beginning to grow really cold. And by really cold, I mean that we are now experiencing weather similar to that of--you'll never believe this--Texas.

A good friend of mine, a fellow teacher from Texas, tells me that he has been communicating with his family about the weather. Yes, Virginia, that's right--Brits aren't the only ones who have dull conversations about the weather; Americans do it, too. It seems that a cold snap is now in effect over much of the United States, and the temperatures in Odessa, Ukraine and Odessa, Texas are now quite similar. Maybe my observations about how much America and Russia have in common are not so far off, after all.

It is fitting that cold weather is starting to pommel Moscow, for our winter vacation begins in earnest this coming week. Most of the teachers at my school are return home to Britain or America for the break, but I shall be stuck here, lack of money keeping me, literally, grounded. But I shall have three weeks to myself to watch YouTube videos, eat at hours closer to my own preference, and maybe get caught up with a little reading.

I shall also be spending this time getting caught up on graduate school applications. I have completed two so far--for programs in Jewish education in New York and Los Angeles. But my most recent conversation with my career counselor has suggested some other paths to me. I have given some thought to looking for university jobs other than actual teaching, and my test suggested to Brenda that I might do well as a career counselor, university administrator, or international student advisor. The latter path is the most appealing to me, since it would involve counseling work as well as the opportunity to meet and work with people from, literally, all over the world.

At the same time, however, it looks as though this path may also bring me closer to fulfilling a longstanding fantasy of mine. Not long after I started really working in New York, I began to have serious fantasies of relocating to Philadelphia. A co-worker I had at the time, who hailed from Philly, told me the best description of the city he could give me was as follows: imagine Brooklyn without Manhattan next to it.

Well, to my mind at the time, that idea sounded like heaven itself. I had just moved from a cramped apartment on West 172nd Street in Washington Heights to a large bedroom in an off-the-beaten-path (I had not yet figured out yet just how off-the-beaten-path) loft-style building in Brooklyn. I found myself quite enjoying my new borough. What I liked most was the one thing Manhattanites tend to put down Brooklyn for--its smaller scale. Manhattan is a borough of skycrapers, screeching taxicabs, and stratospheric incomes; Brooklyn is a borough of row houses, rousing games of . While Brooklyn might not have fit well with my ideas of what it would be like to live in New York, it fit well with dreams I had once had of living in a city.

Imagine no Manhattan. It was easy, and I did try. No Upper East Side snobbiness. No hustle into "the City" (I quickly came to hate this moniker for the borough beyond the East River, but just as quickly came to use it as effortlessly as native Brooklynites) every morning to earn your daily bread. No need for newspapers that told you no news of your own borough. No transit system that could get you to Broadway and 34th in an hour (I soon learned that almost any Brooklyn-Manhattan commute took an hour) but could get you to Bay Ridge only in two. If Philadelphia was Brooklyn without Manhattan, that was a dream I could embrace. And in many ways, I still do.

A few months later, finding myself between jobs again, I ended up in Philadelphia for an interview with a local law firm. I took the opportunity to explore the city a bit--admittedly, mostly the historic district and the area around Penn, which has been rechristened University City. What I found was very much to my liking. While I didn't get the job, I held onto the idea that Philadelphia might be the place for me.

Looking for programs that might lead me toward being an international student advisor, I found a good program at, of all places, the University of Pennsylvania. I had been looking into education programs at Penn before this, but it was amazing to find a program that so clearly fit this new goal, a master's program in something called Intercultural Communication. The degree prepares graduates to work in a variety of settings involving cultural exchange and international endeavor--not just in university international student offices and study abroad programs, but also in corporate settings. I seem to have stumbled upon something that uses my talents and interests while giving me marketability and versatility. And, to boot, will give the opportunity to go live in Philly for a year, possibly longer.

I find myself chomping at the bit thinking of the kinds of graduate programs I might be in next fall. They all seem like things that will take me to the kind of destination in life I've been seeking for a long time--satisfying work, dependable middle-class status, and residence in a city that fits me well. But when I look at this program, I find myself truly a filly who is ready for the race (no, I have not seen The Flower Drum Song too many times!). I feel ready to go back and fight--not in desperation, not in fear, but with resolve and intelligence--for the life I really want.

A few more months and I'll be able to do just that.