My Back Yard

“Is this My Backyard?”

“Yes.”

“Is this the famous My Backyard? The famous My Backyard who’s speaking at the _____ Society?”

“Yes.”

This was the beginning of a delightful phone call I received this morning. An old friend from a previous job saw that I’ll be presenting in his city. He called me to say that he and another former colleague are coming to see me.

It’s always nice when old friends make the effort to stay connected.

One daffodil bulb,
its papery outer layer askew,
lies on my front porch.

It’s on the brick outcropping
where an ornate brick planter
should hold brilliant, spiky mums.

Instead, there’s just this lonely bulb,
dug up by a squirrel
intrigued by the earth I’d disturbed
by my planting.

But squirrels don’t eat daffodils,
so one irate squirrel
protested my poor bulb choice
by displaying one
where I’d be sure to see it.

Such a squirrelly choice.

What do you think of my poem? With all of my poems, I’m open to your suggestions on how to improve them.

I froze when I saw the two-minute warning signal. I’d run long in my practices with my Toastmasters’ mentor. I worried about getting disqualified. I rushed through my last 90 seconds.

The rest of my speech seemed to go fine. The commenters liked my “bold” move of stepping in front of the podium. It didn’t seem so bold to me. I’d observed others receive praise for doing that.

“Although I understand the French better now, the reality is in France I’m still an outsider. There seem to be so many contradictions, so many social codes for different situations that make life interesting but also leave you feeling a bit vulnerable. Living in Paris requires constant effort: effort to make myself understood, effort to understand and to be alert for those cultural intricacies that can turn even going to the post office into a social adventure.”

I’m reading Turnbull’s tale of life in Paris with her French boyfriend (later her husband) as background for my trip to Paris next spring. I’ve been surprised by the many parallels of her experience to mine in Tokyo.

The second sentence of her quote applied to my life in Japan. Perhaps it’s universal for people living in a foreign culture.

A fluorescent dress marked my passage
from adolescence to adult.
On my bat mitzvah day,
I ascended the bimah
clothed in DayGlo Signal Green Screamin’ Fluorescent Paint,
a color “perfect for Haunted Houses.”
My face reflected green,
not good for a sallow girl.

The offending dress was well-tailored
in a sturdy fabric.
It would haunt me until I outgrew it.
Not like the cheap apricot dress
that I wore as a supporting actress
to my brother’s bar mitzvah,
that split at the seams,
one morning during temple services.
Why didn’t I realize this in the store?

I’m not real happy with the execution of this poem.

What follows is my first dump of the information I plan to use in my Toastmasters speech.

1984 – the year I received my Ph.D. in Japanese history – is a year I remember better than the year that I got married to my wonderful husband. In fact, if someone asks me, “What year did you get married?” I think, “I got my Ph.D. in 1984. 1984 plus two years equals 1986.”

Yes, the year 1984 sticks in my mind more than 1986 because I finally earned my Ph.D. in Japanese Japan had been the focus of my study for years.

Japan was a big part of my life.

So, how is it, when I fast forward to 2006, that my work and personal life have nothing to do with Japan? I have evolved from Japanese historian to a freelance financial writer concentrating on investment management and financial planning topics. Is the answer obvious? Can I see a show of hands from those who think they know the answer?

No hands?

Tonight I’m going to tell you how I made the move from historian to financial writer.

Let’s start in the first class I teach as a teaching assistant. I feel overwhelmed by the eyes of 20 undergrads on me. And I struggle to lead a discussion of how the Japanese book of the week illuminates the history of its period. I’m no good as a teaching assistant.

You might think that’s me being modest. Unfortunately, it’s true. The evaluations that I get at the end of four semesters confirm it.

This is bad news. I’d been counting on enjoying teaching. Teaching had to be better than research, I thought. Because I didn’t enjoy researching my Ph.D. thesis. I always felt a bit overwhelmed by my project’s scope. And I hated the requirement to say something new, something different from the scholars before me.

If teaching wasn’t going to redeem the life of a scholar, then I had to find something else to do. I had to escape the Ivory Tower.

But how to escape? The only life I knew was academic. I’d never had a job, other than clerical work or tutoring Japanese students in English.

So I turned to the university’s placement office, going to every lecture on “nonacademic jobs for Ph.D.s.” Eventually, once I’d completed my Ph.D. thesis, I started job hunting.

The only way to get anyone to look at me was to leverage my Japan background. So I ended up working for a small consulting firm as “Manager of the Japan Desk.” That sounds like a very responsible job, doesn’t it? But I was actually a glorified translator, reading and writing about Japanese R&D – research & development – in newspapers and patents. It was a useful place to work for awhile. I managed to work the smell of academia off my resume.

But before long, I was preparing for my escape.

Back at the university, I’d learned about the CFA credential. CFA stands for Chartered Financial Analyst. It’s a credential that many portfolio managers and research analysts have. It’s a credential for professionals in the investment management business. At Harvard I heard former historians speak about how their Ph.D. skills transferred well to their new occupations in the investment management business. That sounded good to me.

So I started taking classes toward earning my CFA. It was going to take a long time. I’d have to pass three years of exams. I couldn’t even start the exams right away. I had to start with prep work. Classes like basic accounting. It was a long haul.

But the fact that I was working toward my CFA – along with my Japanese language skills – was enough to win me a job at a money management firm that had Japanese clients. They reckoned that I was going to help them cash in on the Japanese gold mine. At one of my very first client meetings, a Japanese man said “Suuzan-san is very good secret weapon.”

Even so, the Japanese business alone wasn’t enough to occupy me full-time. So the firm’s owner gave me communications responsibilities, too. I became manager of business communications, in addition to manager of Japanese business.

That was my pivotal job. The place where I shifted my focus from Japan to writing. Because I enjoyed and thrived as a writer to a degree that I never achieved as a Japan expert.

Each of my jobs since then has moved me along.

After I got laid off from the investment management firm, I continued to leverage my Japanese language skills as a Japanese business consultant. But I also began freelance writing. So during that period, the percentage of my time devoted to writing increased.

Next I got a job as a staff reporter for a weekly mutual fund publication. That was my first job completely divorced from Japan. The pressure of weekly deadlines turned me into a speedy and clean writer.

From the newsletter I went back inside an investment management company. But again my job had nothing to do with Japan. I was completely focused on marketing communications related to investments.

And now I’m a freelance financial writer.

I’ve come a long way since earning my Ph.D. in 1984. But I’m still using my intellectual curiosity. Plus, I’m enjoying a profession that’s much better suited to my personality. And, it’s my business as a freelancer that brings me to Toastmasters because I’m finding that I need to do public speaking to promote myself. I look forward to learning from you – tonight and in the future.

I was in tenth grade when I decided to stop being good.

All my life, I’d done what my parents told me to do, what the teachers told me to do, what anyone in authority said. I couldn’t dump my submissiveness overnight. So I confined my rebellion to religious school.

I started small. And passive.

I stopped paying attention during class. I wrote letters in prim blue ink on lined notebook paper folded into quarters and held on my lap, under the cover of my plastic desktop the color of mashed bananas.

One day the teacher called me on my behavior and threatened to tell my parents. I talked him out of it on the grounds that I was a “good kid” who didn’t cause problems. I wasn’t like the boys who shot spitballs, drew pictures on their desktops, and talked about raiding their parents’ liquor cabinets. I didn’t disrupt the class by chatting with other girls. How could I? I didn’t have friends in class. My few Jewish friends went to the Conservative temple on the other side of town, not the Reform temple within walking distance of my home.

I was a bit more discreet after that. But I grew impatient. Why was I wasting time on a school that didn’t offer me any spiritual relief, friendship or anything else positive? And clearly my parents didn’t care about religion. They never attended services other than on the High Holy Days. They were perfect examples of what we called “Revolving Door Jews,” who only honored the most sacred holidays. I started walking to school with my brother, then wandering off with a book.

The dumb thing was, I hung out around the temple with my book. So eventually I got caught by one of the rabbis, who outed me to my parents. I had to finish out the year of religious school, but then I was done.

What really made me mad was that my brother, who was one year younger than me, also got to finish his religious education that year. He didn’t have to stick it out as many years as me.

You can read more about “good.”

I just agreed to give my “icebreaker” speech to Toastmasters next Wednesday. It’s a four- to six-minute speech that should help the audience get to know me.

I have only a glimmer of an idea. I’d like to discuss how I got from my history Ph.D. to a career as a writer. It’s an unusual progression, so I think it would interest people.

Or, I could cop out and explain how I became a squirrel lover. I could probably pull out one of my old articles for conversion into a speech.

Which do you vote for? “Historian to writer” or “Evolution of a squirrel lady”?

Hmm. I feel myself easing over to the squirrelly side of things.

Don’t be surprised if a corn cob falls out of the sky to bop you on the head.

As I watch a squirrel gnaw on a cob slathered with peanut butter, I figure it’s just a matter of time until that happens to someone in my neighborhood. This squirrel is on a branch more than two stories high. She carried the cob, which is four times the size of her head, from our back patio, down the driveway and up the tree.

She looks like she’s enjoying herself.

I enjoyed listening to the “One Minute How-To” on “How to Clear Off Your Desk” by Jessica Duquette of In Perfect Order.

She makes it sound so easy.

I want to try her method.

But not now….

I did a mini desk clean-up a couple hours after originally posting this message. It felt good!