I'm currently working on another transmission, but in the mean time, I'd like to give you this brief scene of inspiration to get you through midterm season.
Just imagine Edna hitting you in the face anytime you are overwhelmed with stress or self-loathing or despair.
In which we learn that often the sweetest things come in the most confusing packages.
Poring over tomes of spy lore in the library as I do from time to time, I came upon an entry entitled "The Cookie Lady". Curious, I read on and discovered what is perhaps the best sentence ever written.
"Initially believed to [be] part of a major espionage ring in Saigon during the Vietnam War, the 'Cookie Lady' turned out to be a cookie lady."
Picture it. Saigon, 1970. A busy street corner. A sharply dressed gentleman approaches a little cart teeming with colorful cookies. He is a naval intelligence officer, ordered to investigate what his superiors fear might be a dangerous enemy agent. There have been reports that a woman who poses as a cookie seller is, in fact, passing stolen U.S. Navy documents to powerful clients. As the officer approaches the cart, the old woman looks up and smiles. They have no common language, so the man simply points to a few cookies and the woman nods. She carefully wraps his cookies and hands them to the man. As the officer looks at the little package in his hands, he realizes his cookies are wrapped in top secret coded naval documents. He looks back at the woman. She smiles widely.
True story.
Apparently, a Vietnamese employee working at the U.S. Navy Intelligence Office in what was at the time Saigon decided to earn a few extra dông by selling what he thought was scrap paper to the lady on the corner. Neither he nor the Cookie Lady had any idea what the documents contained. And I don't think she ever knew. The Navy dropped the investigation and years later someone leaked the story and some very important people resumed banging their heads repeatedly on their desks. I think the Cookie Lady would've loved it.
Bánh Men, traditional Vietnamese cookies
I like to think the intelligence officer walked away shaking his head, the slightest hint of a smile breaking on his face as his popped the sugary treat into his mouth.
Boy, would I have loved to be a fly on the wall in that debriefing meeting. All the fear, the expectation, the confusion. And then this moment of sweet, strange simplicity in the midst of war. That feeling of utter bewilderment and that slow, breaking laughter, particularly reserved for laughing at yourself.
In life, the Cookie Lady visits all of us. She drops these confusing, discouraging or just plain embarrassing packages on our doorsteps. They can be things people say to us in passing. They can be mistakes we make that leave us feeling utterly ridiculous. And they can be things that happen in our lives that smack us in the face. Maybe you laughed at someone's name because you thought they were making it up. Maybe one of your students told you you have a lot of arm hair. Or maybe you did something stupid and got yourself hurt. (These all did, in fact, happen to--ahem--a fellow ninja in my secret order that may or may not actually, in fact, have been me).
And the Cookie Lady just cracks up. "HaHA! You weren't expecting that, were you? Just try to figure that one out."
I think in these moments we have one very important thing to learn from that Navy officer: our single greatest gift when times get tough is the ability to laugh at ourselves. The Cookie Lady helps us stay humble and if we wait and look carefully, we can always find something sweet, even in the things that are toughest to swallow.
We always have a choice. We can rage against the confusion, send our armies out to protect our pride and egos. Or we can laugh at ourselves, unwrap the package and eat the cookie we inevitably find inside.
References:
Polmar, Norman & Thomas Allen
2004 Spy Book: The Encyclopedia of Espionage, 2nd ed. Random House Reference.
On my way home from my reconaissance mission--ahem, volunteering trip--in Tanzania, the last flight of my 24 hour journey was cancelled (diplomatic immunity just isn't what it used to be). I hadn't slept in 20 hours. My cellphone wasn't working. And I had just left, maybe forever, a place I loved and people I cared for. I have never felt more lost. Standing in the middle of the bustling crowd, I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. I just kept wishing by some miracle one of the friends I'd just left would come to my rescue, kept wishing somebody, anybody would come and save me. And then I realized. No one was coming. It was just me. In an airport hundreds of miles from home. And I was going to have to find my way, all by myself. Remembering that moment makes me think of a scene in Harry Potter. You know the one: Harry travels back in time and witnesses a scene from earlier that evening when he thought he saw his father cast the Patronus charm that saved his life. And so Harry's waiting and waiting for his father to appear as he watches the dementors converge on the body of Harry-from-a-few-hours-ago. And then it hits him. He didn't see his dad. He saw himself.
My best friend from home, Soul Sista Ninja, loves this scene. I never understood her fascination with it until that day in the airport. It was just like she always said, "You're waiting and waiting for someone to save you. And then, you save yourself."
To all my ninjas just starting out, college is kind of like that. I'll let that sink in for a moment and take you to another scene.
I was sitting on a familiar porch drinking tea and eating Madeleine cookies when I heard something I really needed to hear. I was venting to a wonderful woman, a woman who's been a second mom to me and who will henceforth be known as Mrs. Mochizuki. As we were talking, I knew we had gotten to an important part because this music started playing. If you listen to it now while you read the next part, you'll get the full effect.
"I don't know, Mrs. Mochizuki," I said, "Sometimes I just want to fall apart and have someone else pick up the pieces."
"Everybody wants that," said Mrs. Mochizuki with a grin. "But you know what? That's not the way it works. Nobody can fix you. People can walk beside you on your journey, but you should never expect anyone to come along and carry you. You have to carry yourself."
I swear that's exactly how it happened. Also, how awesome is Mrs. Mochizuki's code name? I digress.
The point is: college means growing up. And part of growing up is realizing how often find we find ourselves alone. You have to be your own best friend, your own advocate and protector. In those moments when you can't breathe and you feel helpless and you want nothing more than to be rescued by the love of your life or Gandalf the Grey, you realize it's just you. And then you save yourself.
Don't get me wrong---there are going to be amazing and important people who help you and change you along the way. People who walk beside you. But ultimately you're the one who chooses: will I be happy? Or not? The moment I started finding happiness in college and in my life in general, was the moment I took responsibility for the choice I had.
Mochizuki Chiyome, famed leader of an elite group of female ninjas.
P.S. I haven't forgotten that I owe you two care packages for exam week. You will get them next exam week. Just as soon as I remember what I was going to write . . .
The first of three care packages for final exam season.
So far in our imaginary adventures we have channeled wizened wizards and sassy old people as we've pursued perspective, serenity and forgiveness.
But when you've got the clear and present danger of an essay looming on the horizon, all the inner peace in the universe just ain't gonna cut it.
That's right. Oh yes. It's time to channel your inner badass.
It's time for Operation Paper Assassination.
For starters, let's consider this purely hypothetical example that is in no way based on how I actually spent my Thursday morning.
It's 3:00 pm. You're lying in your bed, overheated, starving and you feel like a depressed sloth covered in molasses. To your credit, you actually woke up a few hours ago. You just didn't get up. You sent some emails, checked some websites, day dreamed, took a few mini-naps. And all of a sudden it's the middle of the afternoon and you've got a paper due. You could do one of two things. You could go back to sleep (at this point, what's five more minutes anyway?) and then when you finally lug yourself out of bed, spiral into a downward--uh--spiral of self-loathing that causes you to procrastinate even more.
Or . . .
You hear a noise. Is it them? Have they come? You whip back the covers and leap out of bed, throwing on the first clothes you see. You hastily pack a bag. Computer. Notes. Toothbrush. Any second there could be a knock on the door and it's all over. You pause for a second to look through the peephole on your door. Clear. You flee down the hall, walking nonchalantly when others pass, then breaking into a run as soon as they're out of sight. The library. It's the only safe place. You run all the way, ducking into a little place to buy coffee and some breakfast, just in case you're being followed. Finally, you get to your favorite study spot and collapse into a chair, gasping for breath. You whip out your computer and do what you do best: hack. You've got to tap into a secret channel and send a transmission before . . .
In other words, you went to the library to write your paper. But isn't it so much more fun to pretend you're an expert hacker fleeing mysterious enemies? And more than fun: it gets me out of bed and into a study space in under five minutes. (And you can even pretend in public! People will just assume you're late for something.)
I like to channel one of my favorite badasses in situations like these: Lisbeth Salander from Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Harrison Ford in Fugitive is a good choice too.
Now that you've gotten out of bed and are ready to write, you still need to make the leap to actually putting words on a page. Here are some techniques you can try:
1) Continue with the hacker thing. Sometimes I just type really fast and pretend I'm hacking. But you can also be slightly more realistic. For instance, Hacker Typer is a website that allows you to press random keys and appear to be hacking (you know, black screen, green code, the works). However, even though this might get you into the hacking spirit, it doesn't actually help you write your paper. To feel like you're hacking while writing your paper, open a word document and change your view to "Draft View" in the bottom left corner of the document. Then, change your background to black (Format -> Background) and your font to green and something like Courier. And Voilà!
Helpful hacker props include coffee, gum, dark nail polish and hooded sweatshirts.
2) Pretend you are writing the screenplay for a deep and poetic movie. Caution: this tends to inspire a somewhat dramatic (but also quite moving) writing style. Play a sweeping, touching movie score and narrate your paper as you write it (extra points if you narrate in a British accent . . . or, I guess, if you are in fact British). Imagine you're the voiceover in the beginning of an epic film. I find the main theme from The Notebook especially helpful.
3) Ok, ok, I know what you're thinking: all of this advice is basically just telling me to procrastinate further! I would argue that framing your paper writing session in a fun, refreshing way is a better use of your procrastinating abilities than mindlessly surfing the internet because, hopefully, this might actually help you start your paper. However, I recognize that sometimes you gotta forget all the bells and whistles and just pound it out. So here is my gift to you: Write or Die. It's a website that motivates you to keep writing by messages, loud noises and (my personal setting of choice) deleting your words one by one if you stop for too long. This is called Kamikaze Mode and it has saved me in some of my worst homework moments. The kinder alternative is Written Kitten, which sadly has no power over a procrastinator extraordinaire like myself, but which you might like. My close friend Roomie Ninja also suggested Self Control which will block any websites you find distracting for the amount of time you set.
4) If you're sick of boring, mundane assignments, shake it up! Take an exciting new angle, a daring perspective or a gutsy attitude with your essay. My best friend from high school, Soul Sister Ninja, would take quotes from her favorite songs and poems and start out her papers with those. Don't let your essay kill your creative, vibrant spirit and doom you to conformity.
Instead, you assassinate it with your badass style. Oh, oh! Even better, badassinate it.
In which we make believe super awesome people believe in us.
Elie Wiesel. Nobel Peace Laureate. Renowned author and humanitarian. Holocaust survivor.
Queen Latifah . . . Yeah. Queen Latifah.
What do these two people have in common? Answer. They're my shoulder angels!
Sometimes we just can't do it on our own. And friends are great, but sometimes we need a mentor. Someone wise and tough who can knock some sense into us while providing that life-saving kind of comfort. Well, we've said goodbye to our parents, older relatives and beloved teachers. So who's going to play Obi-Wan to our Luke?
When I feel the need for a caring, firm voice to motivate me to be a grown up, I imagine my shoulder angels giving me a pep talk. When I can't get out of bed in the morning . . .
Me: Nope, goin' back to sleep . . .
Q.L.: Baby, get yo ass out of bed and do somethin' with your life! C'mon, I'm not gonna wait forever.
Me: But Queen Latifah, I'm so tired----
E.W.: Each day is a gift. Doing nothing in the face of so much beauty and so much pain would be a crime, my friend.
Q.L: Mmmmm-hmmmmm.
Or when I get all worked up over school . . .
Me: Guys, I can't do this. I ruin everything! I fail at life.
E.W.: No one is a failure who loves.
Q.L.: That's just crazy. Girl, you expect me to feel sorry for you? Snap out of it! Go make it happen, Baby.
Because we feed ourselves negative messages all the time, sometimes we need to hear the good stuff in another person's voice. A voice we trust and admire.
But here's the thing. As fun as it is to imagine your own personal shoulder angels, you need real live mentors too. You need grown ups. And man, have I missed them in college.
Since I've been on my own, away from the constant love and simple presence of my family, I've craved mentors, mothers and life coaches like never before. Part of your quest when you arrive on campus your first year is to create a support system for yourself---don't underestimate the importance of finding awesome old(ish) people. You might find your Dumbledore in a professor you like or someone at your job or the parent of a kid you babysit. Or you might find them in a completely unexpected way. Get to know the other adults in your life that you might not immediately think of as mentors---my friends and I have found surrogate parents and grandparents in our librarians, dorm housekeepers and dining hall chefs.
The key is to share yourself. This is not, "My professor is very prestigious therefore I will now attempt to ask an intelligent question so as to impress them." This is more like, "What a funny guy! I think I'll go tell him I liked his lecture." Or, "Neuroscience is awesome! I'll go ask my professor what classes she would recommend!" Wear your heart on your sleeve when you're first getting to know your target real-life shoulder angel. Don't invent reasons to talk to awesome grown ups. But don't make excuses NOT to talk them when you really want to.
As for grown ups you're meeting outside the classroom, ask people's names and then hang around long enough to have a real conversation. And when you see them the next time, have another real conversation. It's that simple, my ninjas.
Cheer up, child. It'll turn out all right in the end, you'll see.
So, I have two questions for you: Who would you pick for your imaginary shoulder angels if you could have anyone in the fictional or non-fictional universe? And who are your real life shoulder angels? Send me a top secret transmission below (i.e. comment)! Feel free to use code names to protect your identities (oh, you know you want to).
Because spy missions sound better in foreign languages.
You know that thing when you suddenly remember something awful you did days, months or even years ago and your whole body just cringes?
Well, Ninja Protégé, it is time to begin your anti-regret training. Like the Zen Master Method, El Código del Perdón (or "The Code of Forgiveness") can be employed in any stressful situation, not just when dealing with mistakes.
Step 1. Freak out.
Start panicking.
This step is optional. More experienced ninjas proceed directly to Step 2. I just want to acknowledge that it's ok to take a few moments to feel what you feel.
Step 2. Employ Zen Master Method.
See my last communication. Quick summary: Pretend you are an unflappable badass. As you are making your plan of action on how to tackle your problem, keep in mind these next steps.
Step 3. Face the music.
I spent a lot of time in high school making excuses for myself. I was so afraid of people's disapproval that I was never just honest about my mistakes and things like, "I was sick!" just slipped out. Now, I try to just tell the hard truth. I once burst into my Japanese staff fighting class (and you were doubting my qualifications as a ninja) a half an hour late and bumbled through an explanation that I had slept through my alarm but I really, really wanted to be there and it wouldn't happen again. My teacher (Steve Sensei) told me to get it together. And then thanked me for my honesty. I can't tell you how many people thank me for my honesty nowadays. We all screw up. Often. And badly (arriving late to class has been the least of my mishaps). So people appreciate when you humbly take responsibility. Admit you were wrong, ask for help and bravely face your mistakes.
I haven't been feeling well. I had a family emergency.
I made a mistake.
Step 4. Do what you can to fix it.
You can't go back. And no one can expect that of you. So do your best, your absolute best, to make amends. Apologize. Ask what you can do going forward. And then the ball's in the other person's court.
Step 5. Be honest with yourself.
"I failed my test because I'm a horrible person." Wrong. You failed your test because you didn't understand the material and underestimated how much time you'd need to study. In the scheme of things, those are pretty small mistakes. At least a lot smaller than being a horrible person! Be sure to remember the tough stuff that was out of your hands too. Don't beat yourself up for things you didn't do or couldn't control. Take an unflinchingly honest look at what went wrong and focus on one small thing you could do differently next time.
Step 6. Learn from it.
The best way I've found to get past my regrets is to make a pact with myself for next time. "Ok, so that didn't go so hot. Note to self: do not eat spaghetti over your friends' class projects" [actual entry in my journal from freshman year]. Remember to be patient with yourself. You might end up making the same promise to yourself several times before you're able to make a change.
And then,
Step 7. Let it go.
Listen, we’re not supposed to know how to do this. Let me repeat: We’re not supposed to know how to do this. My first year I remember being in the midst of trying to start this club and failing miserably and asking myself, “Why can’t I do this?” And just as suddenly I had my answer. Nobody told you how. You have to be patient with yourself as you figure out how to be an adult because while the people who love you have tried to prepare you for this, the truth is, you don’t have the answers yet and how could you possibly? So the most important rule of surviving college: forgive yourself for your mistakes because this is how we learn how to be the awesome adults we dream of being.
Sometimes I ask myself, "Will this matter to the future love of your life? Will your kids care that you messed this up?" And that usually helps.
Will your future children care about this mistake?
Seriously, for all the soon to be first years out there, let this be your mantra: This is my first year. I'm just learning.
I'm not supposed to know how to do this.
Special thanks to my sister, High School Ninja, who inspired my ideas on this and first helped me articulate them. Rock on with your bad self, Baby Cakes.
