And she's back!

Hey, guys, sorry for the dry spell. My computer got a virus and was down for weeks. I know all of you were just devastated.

So, a couple weeks ago, my English class was about to start Death of A Salesman, and we were discussing the American dream. The "popular kids" or as I called them in seventh grade, "the conniving sluts" had apparently spent St. Patrick's Day drinking steadily from sunrise to God only knows when, and were massively hung over. This took the form of them all being in extremely bad tempers, so throughout this discussion, they vehemently denied the feasibility of the American dream.

"It's just not realistic," Bad Dye Job said.

"Yeah," said Bags Under Eyes. "Remember Econ last year? The poverty cycle? You can't break out of it. It perpetuates itself."

"It's all outdated propaganda," said the Girl Who Contradicts Everything I Say (remember her? It's been a while).

They continued in this vein even after a boy talked about his dad emigrating to America from Pakistan, finishing high school, going to college, and becoming an engineer. These kids absolutely refused to accept that people can build themselves up.

And they're wrong, of course. My family is an example of the American dream. My great-grandmother couldn't speak English. She emigrated to America from Poland. My grandma and great-aunt ate borsht for breakfast every day and grew up on the East Side, in a cluster of other Polish immigrants. They both talk all the time about taking Accounting courses in high school, going to work as secretaries, finding work anywhere they could, working to improve themselves.

When my great-uncle (my grandpa's brother) came over from Sicily, he didn't speak any English. He grabbed education anywhere he could get his hands on it and eventually owned his own store.

I am proud to have this family history. In the way of an upper-middle class white kid, it's pleasing to realize that my family became who they are today through hard work. Going to my school, I'm surrounded by an unpleasant sense of entitlement, which is something I try to avoid. It's profoundly irritating to listen to people talk about how they got into Geneseo, like that's hard. It is hard, assholes!

I believe that it's easier to distance oneself from one's roots in America. I am in love with my family's past. (Less so with my dad's side. It's not quite as interesting. Or if it's more interesting, nobody ever talks about it.) That's part of this city's appeal to me. It's broken-down, dirt broke, and freezing as hell, but I have deep roots here. And it allows me to connect with my past. I know where my grandma used to live and where she went to school, where my great-grandmother lived, and where she got married. My family built themselves up, and it's credible that we didn't leave this place in our dust. We stayed put, and now we're all giving back to the place that got us where we are.

American Dream. It's true, all you disbelieving, hung over bitches. Love it. Own it.