sigelphoenix

I am ill. What a way to celebrate Christmas, I know.

It's not so bad, though - certainly better now that I'm at home and vegging instead of trying to go to class or battle my finals. If I had to pick a time to be sick, this would be it.

The reason this is relevant is that I had to go renew my state ID card today, which means getting my picture taken. Trying not to make my sickness evident, I decided to make a conscious effort at looking alert. The result is that my new photo has me doing this kind of wide-eyed, dweeby smile-thing that looks vaguely silly. And it won't change until this ID card expires in 2011. >_>

On a brighter note, as I was waiting to get my picture taken, there was a man sitting next to me - probably in his 40s or 50s, wearing glasses, white. There had been a few Spanish-speaking people getting licenses and such, and at one point my neighbor turned to me and said, "Must be one of the hardest things in the world, getting a driver's license in a foreign country." To which I smiled and said, "Yeah."

I really appreciated that. Here was this guy, obviously a native English speaker and, I assume, a U.S. citizen - and he didn't say anything about how "those people" should learn English. He even referred to the U.S. as a "foreign country" - which, yes, is probably true for these non-native English speakers, but not for him. That wording was a subtle way of acknowledging that he was not the default, and that, despite his perspective, the U.S. is "foreign" to most people in the world. (In his position, most people, however well-meaning, would have probably said something about "those" people coming over "here.")

He also didn't finish his statement by giving me one of those pointed, "I'm sure YOU know what that's like, yellow girl" looks. W00t.

Now, this was a small thing, but I figure since there are so many small, crappy things that make me unhappy - everyday privilege and prejudice and ignorance - it's worth acknowledging when the good things come along, however insignificant.