The people we meet in life.

Now that I have internet again, I plan on having more updates. 

Throughout life we encounter numerous friends and other people that change who we are, whether it be for better or worse. I have come to the conclusion that there are really only two types of people in the world -the ones that raise you up and ones that bring you down. While it seems easy to determine the two it sometimes becomes a challenge. Consequently, I can sometimes also succumb to the mindset of the latter. I would like to say that words don't hurt, but of course they do and while each individual is in control of his or her own happiness friends and acquaintances can also effect how you feel and act.

I also believe that nothing really changes from high school. We all try to fit in and be a part of a group of people, only wanting to be accepted by a group of people like ourselves. People gossip and talk about others no matter how many people say they don't.. everyone takes part of it in some way or another. We all get pissed off from time to time and are angered by those closest to us.  These are people that, in effect, can hurt us the most.

In addition, we have phases in our lives in which we come across these friends. Friends come and go no matter how good of friends you were sometimes we take different paths in our lives and we become distance.

Take high school for example:  I never thought I quite fit in during high school. I guess I would have been a nerd or somewhat of an unpopular kid. Don't get me wrong, I had many people I talked to and had fun with but I was never the kid who went and spent the night at someone's house or just hung out with people. I guess the best way to put it is that I just got along with everyone in my small class.  I have a small group of friends from high school that I had fun with, whether it be the group I knew from my affiliation from working at Pizza Hut to the group of friends in band or choir. Once high school is over, everyone goes their separate ways and to no fault of anyone, you just lose contact. Thank God for Facebook - I can now keep up and talk with them.  Some of these friends follow you to college..

College - oh what a time.  It is a whirlwind of fun and excitement and then one day you graduate, everyone packs up and goes home and whether or not you realize it that is the last time you see or hear from any of your friends that you spent every waking hour or day with - whether it be partying or just staying up all night sitting in the same spot on your friends futon talking all night. These are the friends I really wish I could keep in contact with the most - the friends who really knew you and the ones you knew more than some family members. Then one day it all changes. College is over and at some point you become an adult and people start having families and the days turn into years and the only time you ever really see these people are by coincidence or when you look through the pictures from college, thinking how just once you could go back and relive the days where you could start drinking at 4 in the afternoon and stay up until 3 AM only to do it all over again the next day. Now if you try this it takes a good day or two to just get out of bed and recover. If there is something I wish it would be to keep in contact with this group of friends - the ones that truly knew you, the ones that you spent your entire 4 years with, the ones that live across the entire state.  If only just one day we could all go back and relive what once ways only to say, "Goodbye" properly rather than the usual "see you later" as you cram your college crap in the back of a pickup heading home for the last time.

Last but not least are the friends you have now... the ones you have met since college whether it be through your neighborhood or through your workplace. While we are all older it doesn't necessarily mean we are all more mature. We are just older immature people trying to find friends as if we were in junior high again just wanting to be "liked."  I have a lot of great friends - I really do. I have so many people that I care about and that care about me I have a sense of accomplishment. Some of these great friends I have known since high school while others I have known for a short time but all have a great impact of my life. 

One of my biggest faults is to worry about what other people think of me. I will fully admit it and while I try to think otherwise, this is still fault of mine. It is hard for me to let things slide off my back.  There are people in my life who try to bring me down and I am not sure why - whether it be that they are just that mean or that they are just too jealous and don't want me to have what they can't have themselves - happiness. These are the people that purposely ignore you just so they get under your skin, those who make snide remarks to others or more discretely by texting messaging or Facebook. These are the ones that make comments regarding something about you to others, but never actually mentioning you in them - yet they and you both know they are directing the comment to you. These are also the people who then turn the situation completely around, trying to validate their own actions by claiming what they are doing is in response to you..... and still you would think I would know how to handle this. I am still at a loss as to what to do. I guess one can only take so much negativity and blatant rudeness for so long until that is all one focuses on.  What do you do?  How do you rid yourselves of people who make you feel like crap (even if you don't know if you still consider them a friend or not).  

And the last paragraph in itself sums up my faults... all this energy on a very small portion of negative people in my life when I should be focusing on everyone who is a positive influence. I just wish I would make more of an effort to keep in touch to those who I spent so much of my time in the past with.  I truly wish I could spend more time with all of my friends at least for a moment reliving the the good times we all had. The ones that one day we will talk to our kids about or reminisce while looking through old photos. 

Getting older sucks

I will be the first to say that I never signed up for this getting older crap. For the past few years I think about my age and I think to myself, "What in the world happened? When did I get old?" Since I have turned 30, it has all been downhill. It is hard for me to believe that it has been nearly 10 years since I graduated college and that I have been teaching for just as long.  I feel like I am stuck in this post-college phase in which I am just an extended college student. I still feel as if I should be in my 20's and I don't think I have changed much but slowly my hair turns grey and more and more parts of my body ache when i do the electric slide at the school dances. In the Cha-Cha Slide when it says, "How low can you go? Can you go down low?" I have to admit that I have no problem going down squatting lower and lower but it is the getting back up that is becoming harder. I have even started lying about my age. I think I might just be 29 for the rest of my life.

For my life it seems you look forward to get older - to be that next milestone age. First it is 16, then 18 and then 21. Once you hit 21 that is pretty much it, unless you count 25 when your car insurance might go down. Then once you turn 21 and graduate college you are so consumed in finding a job and starting a career that you fail to realize that you are slowly aging. Then somewhere through my mid-20's I still felt young I kept inching closer and closer to the age of 30. Now that 30 has come and gone, I no longer feel young. I miss those college days in which you would just hang out and have fun to endless hours of the night/morning. I miss going out every Friday and Saturday and dancing with my friends. Now my Friday and Saturday nights are spent watching HGTV and the occasional *late night* out with friends. Note: *late night* is now approximately 11 o'clock or as late as one can physically stay awake without falling asleep on your friends couch.

What also puzzles me is what to wear. I was never really that fashionable in high school and for that matter, college. But my senior year I started (or thought so) to dress a little more fashionably. I shopped American Eagle and loved it - fairly good deals on sales and everything fit me well. Well, I still shop there and am constantly asking myself the question - Should I stop? Am I too old? When is the point that you realize that you no longer can wear an AE polo? I mean I am still wearing my polos that I bought back in college 10 years ago! ha! It still looks good. Do I now start buying IZOD golf polos? I guess this is the last part of staying younger that I can control. If I buy from AE then maybe I AM younger, psychologically speaking.

The other aspect is getting older is the realization that your family is as well. The older I get means that one day hopefully not in the near future my mom, brother and grandmas are aging as well. This bothers me the most. With the loss of people early on in my life, I can deal with death quite well but the more I think about it as I am older the harder it is to deal with. With both of my grandmas in good health and in their 80's I know time grows shorter and shorter. My grandma Kirk always makes me laugh and has no problem talking about her death. She has her obituary written, songs picked out for her funeral and everything strategically and methodically planned out on her bulletin board for all of us. We laugh at it. I guess it is our way of not thinking about it. She also has post-it notes behind items in her house with names that the items go to in our family, whether it be my mom, my brother or myself. It is humorous and we often joke about it. But the truth of the matter is that I more and more worry about this. I am very close to both of my Grandmas and to think about not having either one is unbearable. For the last two years I keep thinking about a letter to write to both of them, expressing what both of them mean in my life - something I wish I would have done before my Grandpa passed a few years back and it is something I regret. I always ask myself, "If only.." I wish I would have spent the time to sit down with my Grandpa and just asked him about his years in the war and gotten to more about him. So why don't I do that with my Grandmas? Is it to avoid the situation all together? I don't know but I keep putting off this letter. I keep putting off telling them how much I appreciate them and what they have meant to me throughout my years and how I appreciate them for what they have done. They truly are special.  Now if I could actually tell them this.

Oh how it would be great to turn back the clock - the younger days when I worried more about more about a zit on my face than worrying about more serious things.

Teachers are the enemy...

Teachers. We are definitely your enemy. Over the past few months, it has been a common occurrence in the news that teachers are to blame for everything. We are the ones that screwed up pensions. We are the ones that have ruined education and because we are members of the union we are somehow the cause of the economic crisis. Teachers are to blame for everything.

When going to college to become a teacher, I knew one thing. I wanted to make a positive difference in the lives of students. I knew what I was getting myself into and I also knew it wasn't for the money.  However, after earning $200 every two weeks at Pizza Hut, a $800 paycheck didn't seem too bad. I started teaching in 2002 and everyday, I can truly say that I enjoy going to work. I enjoy teaching and there isn't anything I would rather do. I am one of many who do this daily.  Yet, teachers daily are at fault for a multitude of things. When did the paradigm shift in the views of teachers occur? When did the majority of views stem from favoring teachers to being against teachers? I just don't get it. 

I personally love it when people say, "well back when I was a child we learned things. Education was better...." Blah blah blah.. I just want to say that is a bunch of bull crap. Back in the day students were held accountable. Many more parents cared and were involved in their child's education and quite frankly, I don't think the standards were nearly as hard. Teachers could also use physical punishment. In addition, I think students learn more today than years ago. There were no standards of measurement to really say what the kids were learning. It is assumed that they learned more when I can say in math for example, it seems students are required to know more earlier and earlier. The difference isn't a lack of education it is a lack of morals and values of education combined with a growing number of low-income families. The devaluation of education in society has led everyone to point the finger of blame. Who is the easiest to blame? Schools and teachers. People always compare America to students overseas and how we are surpassed. What is the biggest difference? The value of education among families. Some countries go as far as to choose only the students they feel most fit to go to college. Education is a priority not a feel good notion.

So now we arrive to present day. Every president brings up the idea to reform education yet no one ever effectively does. It seems as if with each new president comes a new acronym for this feel good idea on how we are going to wave a magic wand and fix it all. Teachers cringe because they understand it won't work but lawmakers applaud the efforts because it sounds good. So then a new law or idea is then passed and within a given amount of time the heavens will open and students will now be smart. But of course we will raise class sizes and reduce funding. It is okay though because we make too much as it is.

You see as a teacher I live a secret life. I have a 5,000 sq. ft home with servants who wait on my every need. I have a Lexus and a BMW but I really only take my Ford to school. My pensions and health care costs are zero and I live a lavish lifestyle. I mean I am part of a union, what more would you expect? Commenting on the union issue, I am not sure why there is all of the sudden a huge mass entity going against unions. Unions support a competitive wage and why would anyone be against that? There are so many misconceptions as to people who belong to a union. In addition, what is the value of a teacher? People that say we are overpaid.. what should a teacher be paid? Minimum wage? Do you not want us to be paid as middle class? Rather than attacking unions as paying to much, why don't we figure out something to help out people in the private industry to receive more benefits? And to all of the people who say pensions are what is ruining the state you are sorely mistaken. The pension system is self-sustainable but the problem lies when corrupt governments borrow from it year after year and never pay it back. It can't support this but yet they keep taking more and more money from the "pension pot" to pay other areas of government. But of course teachers are at fault for this as well.


And of course how dare teachers complain about anything? I mean seriously, they get summers off. They only work 9-10 months a year. How dare they make what they do? I mean can we really expect teachers to call teaching a profession and make a life out of it? Whenever this argument is brought up, every teacher I know then goes on and on (and rightfully so) about the countless hours and money put in of our own time to do schoolwork. It truly is hard work. But of course when we bring up these issues to naysayers, we are told that we are complaining. Again, it is our fault.  I guess it is okay that we have to purchase thousands of dollars of our own supplies. I mean I guess every profession does that right?


Just once I would like to listen to the media and and have them say something positive about teaching. I will go to my job loving what I do and doing the best damn job I can at it, but please once, lay off teachers. I, along with thousands of other teachers, can only stand to listen to this BS only so much before we are beat down.  I mean at the rate we are going, teachers will be nothing more than minimum wage jobs with no benefits. Good thing I spent 50 grand on a college education. But that is probably my fault as well.