On education
I actually began with a major in electrical engineering, and I had to have a humanities theme. So, I had a friend at another university studying Russian language and I myself was starting to read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky and getting rather enthusiastic about that. My advisor in electrical engineering knew the Russian professor, and he said, “Oh he is just great! Let me call him up and you can ask how you can join the class.” And I said, “Okay.” So I did. After a couple of years, I understood that I gravitated much more to the language and literature courses, which I think felt much more natural to me than the engineering.
I don’t regret those years at all and at Northwestern [University] they have an absolutely wonderful program to support people doing engineering and my advisor in particular was trying very hard to bring more women in engineering. And that’s an opportunity that I try to make my daughters aware of and think about, so that they feel that there are options in a range of fields of what they might want to go on to pursue.
On literature
After university I worked as a customer service representative for Scholastic Books. They have programs in grade schools where teachers order for the class and individual students can make an order for specific books and it comes and it is kind of a big event. It is meant to help engage kids in reading. I just fielded calls from grade school teachers all over the United States who had questions or issues with their orders. It was shockingly boring work for the most part, seating in this awful poorly lit hall of people in cubicles with headphones.
But two things about it were good. It was interesting to talk to people from all over the United States and to observe the regional differences in accents and manner. You know, there were these very friendly polite teachers from Texas who would call and there were these very severe sounding people who really knew what they wanted calling from Flushing, Queens. So it would be like, “What would I get?” when it popped up on my screen. It was interesting to talk to people and hear the differences.
And then, in between calls when it was not too busy I worked on reading [The Life and Times of] Tristram Shandy, [Gentleman], which was a very long book, but compared to the boredom and difficulty of the job, it was a pleasure to read all nine volumes of Tristram Shandy and that was my achievement for that period. But what it did overall was really motivate me to get my graduate application done.
On teaching
My father felt, I think, not very fulfilled in his job as a representative for the social security administration in the United States. But every now and then, he would get to teach something and he loved that. And I think he felt a real vocation for teaching and he told me, “It’s the most important thing you could ever do.” I think he felt like the relationship between a teacher and a student, and the ability to bring them to some kind of understanding and awareness that you could help share with them, is one of the most important human interactions we have. So, that was quite influential for me.
On immigration
My father had three different editions of James Joyce’s Ulysses and I knew that it was his favourite book. But I think he had a very personal connection to that novel in particular. As an immigrant, he felt like an outsider and I think the character of Leopold Bloom really appealed to him as someone who was an outsider in this society. I think he felt that books and music provided a way to establish himself in a new culture, from which he felt rather alienated. Joyce’s Ulysses was a work that seemed intimidating, but it was widely admired. So, I think that it was gratifying to him in a lot of ways to relate to the book the way he did.
On moving to Toronto
I felt in some ways just a little bit out of place for a long time, but it’s a little bit hard to put my finger on the things that made me feel that way. I know that when I speak to people they frequently can tell and will mention that, “Oh! You are American!” So, you know, there is a little bit of feeling like my roots are not here. I also recognize that in a city like Toronto in particular, most of the people like me are coming from other places and there’s this wonderful diversity that I really love about big cities in general and appreciate in Toronto in particular. So, I feel like being an immigrant to Canada and being a new Canadian for me was a relatively easy path, and one that I’ve been very happy to make. I’m happy to call Toronto now my home.
On language
It’s natural for us to raise our kids trilingual. My husband speaks Russian with them. They go to a French school and I speak English with them. And growing up myself it was not a priority in the family to make sure that I learned Hungarian, for example, it was more just an expectation to assimilate linguistically into American society at large. I think the thinking on that has evolved and it is more normal to want your kids to have the heritage language, but I also feel like Canada and Toronto supports that with schools easily available for heritage learners to preserve and deepen children’s knowledge of the language of their parents.
On anxieties
Growing up I was a very shy person. It was hard if my mother asked me to call and order a pizza. I was in agony. So, it always felt like an effort to put myself in front of a group and speak to them and I think that in some ways it was an advantage because I could never take it for granted as I felt that I needed to work at that. Not always successful, but it makes me try for sure and it’s a special kind of energy. When it works it’s just the most gratifying thing in the world. I am happy when the students have enough confidence in me to come talk to me and share something about their thinking or where they are coming from. When you feel like you’ve connected with people and helped to share some of the excitement you feel about what you talking about with them. You know, that’s a wonderful thing.
