Making a House a Home

I've never been good at decorating. I am not one of those people who can see different elements in stores and visualize them all together in my house. Call it a personality flaw. What's more, I barely notice my surroundings after a while. It it stays the same then it blends in with the background and so I don't notice the empty walls in my house or the lack of small details which would make it feel homey. Normally, this isn't something that bothers me but right now, I'm noticing it more and more.

I am currently blaming my newfound awareness on the Christmas cards I've been receiving in the mail. Now that Rachel is pregnant I officially have two friends left who don't have children. The rest of them have been sending me beautiful Christmas cards complete with pictures of their families. I look at the little faces of their children and I wonder how it is that the people I used to be a goofball with have become parents. I recognize facial features of my friends in their children and I remark and how crazy genetics is. I will right now admit to staring at these pictures much more than I should. In the background of these pictures are the houses of my friends and these glimpses into the houses has shown me one thing: Clutter makes a house a home.

It's not just any clutter. It would do me no good to simply leave junk laying around my house. It's the toys of children, the messes of children, the laundry piles stacked up in the laundry room, the family dog making a nuisance of itself....the list obviously goes on and on. I guess my house won't really feel like a home until I have a family of my own and this is something which surprises me. I guess I never realized it was so important.

Conversations with Myself

There isn't any time of year I miss my grandmother more than during the Christmas season. I still remember how the day after Thanksgiving, our entire family would be obligated to replace virtually every normal decoration in her house with a Christmas decoration. The enormous boxes would get hauled up from the basement. The tree was the small project. Once the lights were on my grandmother would usually decorate it herself while the rest of us went to work on the rest of the house. The enormous mirror in the bathroom would be adorned with lights, the table top knick-knacks would be cleared away and replaced with Christmas ones complete with angel hair to imitate snow.

My grandmother's house oozed Christmas. It was her favorite holiday.

Last night, as I sat in my living room waiting for my husband to come home from work I found myself wishing my grandmother was around. On nights like last night, with it gently snowing outside we would have done exactly what I was doing: Sitting in the dark with all of the Christmas lights turned on sipping a cup of hot chocolate.

It's been five and a half years since she died and I don't think I could have missed her any more than I did last night. I miss the talks we used to have. I miss how we would giggle over just about anything. I miss the stuff we used to do on Sundays just because we were bored. I miss the way she used to giggle every time one of my guy friends - who I had no interest in dating - called and I rolled my eyes as I spoke to them on the phone. I remember hearing someone say it takes 7 years to get over someone close to you dying. At the time I was young and stupid and thought that seemed a very long time. Now I wonder if I'll be so lucky.

A part of me hopes I won't.

The Latest Trend to Sweep the Nation

This school year has been a tough one for me. More than ever before I have parents who believe they need to be in contact with me nearly every day. This is far more parent contact than I really want because it takes time to respond to these people and it's cutting into my planning time. Why are they calling, you ask? Oh, their student isn't getting an A in my class. They're not failing. They're not getting a D. Most of them aren't even getting C's. They're getting B's and that is simply unacceptable.

Haven't you heard? The A is the new C.

My classes are designed around the average student being able to obtain a grade of C. Isn't that what a C is? D is below average, F is far below average. A's and B's are above average and C is average. There is nothing wrong with being average, in fact, most of us are average...hence the term...average. By wanting to push A's into a commonplace occurrence for the average student, we are saying that everyone is over-achieving. If everyone is over-achieving in a class, wouldn't you think the class is too easy?

Is it really that awful that I challenge your student?
Is it really so bad that they have to work hard?
Is it really so awful that they feel a sense of accomplishment for getting a B instead feeling bored while they get an A?

I understand parents love their children and want them to do well, but making sure they never struggle is setting them up for failure in the real world. Seeing to it they receive the highest marks for any work they do is giving them an unrealistic view of how things work. It makes them lazy and complacent.

Receiving a grade of C means your student has done average work. Receiving a grade of B is an honor. Receiving an A means your student has performed at an exceptional level. Think about those things as you stew over their grades.

Oh yeah... and By The Way......

I totally did it.

50,000 words.
One month.
You can be impressed by me now.

Honestly, I'd say it was a rewarding experience over all. Early Sunday morning, at around 6:30, I did a word count and found myself over 50k. I verified on the National Novel Writing Month website and celebrated quietly by drinking a cup of Holiday Mint coffee. I felt incredibly satisfied.

During the month of November I found myself writing in every spare moment, mostly away from the computer as I've found I tend to sound like a robot when I write at the computer. The five minutes I have between classes...I was writing. The twenty minutes after work before I can leave for home...I was writing. While dinner was in the oven...I was writing. I managed amazing leaps some days of 4k words and others I didn't even get a chance to think about it at all other than a twinge of guilt as I sunk into bed for the night.

Now, I haven't written a word since Sunday morning but I do intend to. Having 50k words doesn't mean I have a complete book. It's far from it and I'm still hammering out some of the details. My main characters have decided to do something awkward which has lengthened the book and I'm not certain what they intend to do with this extra time. For the moment they've hijacked it though and I'm a bit frightened they'll head somewhere which will make the ending - which I've already written - obsolete. Ugh.

I love how motivating the experience was and I look forward to next November when I will again take up the challenge. In the meantime, I am forced to set small goals for myself which may or may not be motivating. Only time will tell.

Sheer genius? Or the epitome of laziness?

Yesterday afternoon Dean and I finally had some quiet time. The previous three days had been hectic with three Thanksgivings and me cleaning my house like a madwoman. (I even cleaned the refrigerator and I mean I took everything out and then removed the shelves and cleaned the entire thing. It looks beautiful.) At Thanksgiving, our family members had finally gotten around to giving us their Christmas lists and I was eager to see how much of it I could obtain online.

Half an hour later I hit confirm order in amazon.com. My Christmas shopping is now complete. I mean it, aside from going and buying some wrapping paper, I'm done. It was a fantastic feeling. I hate going out in the crowds of holiday shoppers and trudging around the stores looking for the items on so-and-so's list. It sucks. The sheer genius of shopping online (free shipping) and doing it all in half an hour from the comfort of my home while wearing pajamas was magnificent.

As I excitedly relayed this fact to one of my coworkers this morning she got a strange look on her face and said "I don't know. That just seems lazy. Isn't the point of Christmas shopping to go out and take great care when selecting your items?" After thinking the stress of the drive to work on sheets of ice had gotten to her and grudgingly admitting she most likely wasn't crazy, I took a moment or two to think about her statement.

Here's my response:

No, it's not lazy, it's practical. Perhaps, to you, Christmas is about shopping. To me, however, Christmas is about getting together with your family and enjoying the feelings of unity the season promotes. Going shopping in throngs of irritable and rude people does not promote feelings of unity in me. In fact, it promotes murderous rages in me which is not Christmassy at all. So you go shopping. I'm done. It took me half an hour. When you're struggling to find the last items on your list on December 22nd, I'll wave. Bitch.

Crazy, Insane and Just Plain Dangerous

Holidays with my family are usually interesting. There are dynamics involved which I cannot possibly explain but those who know me well know my family is a bit on the crazy side. All in all, I would say Thanksgiving went very well. No one got in a huge fight, no one angered Jackie and we all ate well except for Elizabeth who is coasting downhill into an eating disorder and the awkward way her parents handle anything abnormal is only making it worse. *SIGH*

Anyway, speaking of Elizabeth...the girl is dangerously outspoken. After years of my stepmother being a tyrant and exploding at the smallest thing, my sisters and I are - naturally- very careful not to set her off. Elizabeth, being her full daughter, apparently has none of the fear my sisters and I do. She announced to her mother sometime before Thanksgiving that no one likes her stuffing. When her mother replied that everyone likes her stuffing Elizabeth said "No, Keri Shelly and Rhonda all hate it, they've said they hate it." Uh oh. Now Jackie thinks we've been sitting around and discussing her cooking... this is likely to set Jackie off. So, naturally, when Jackie calls Keri to ask about said hatred of her stuffing Keri replies "She's lying."

The desire to protect oneself is fierce. Normally, my sisters and I would never throw Elizabeth under the bus like that. We might turn on each other but we're generally protective of the kid. When she goes courting danger like this... she deserves what she gets. My brother in law even made a point of telling Jackie that he's always liked her stuffing.

Now naturally, no one thought to tell me about any of this so when I show up to Thanksgiving, I'm completely unaware that Elizabeth has ratted us all out. When they start talking about it, I'm clueless and have to ask and Jackie launches into the story. I'm dumbfounded. I can't remember what Jackie's stuffing TASTES like, only that it's got big onions in it that are undercooked, but surely I can't say THAT. So I say "I don't even remember what it tastes like." Elizabeth groans and everyone laughs. Thankfully Jackie was good natured about the whole thing and was laughing it off or we'd all have been dead. My sisters and I made a point of telling Elizabeth that if she ever does that again, we will again throw her under the bus without thought or remorse.

Here's what gets me: We are all adults. How is it that one woman can still inspire so much fear? We're not children anymore and we don't have to stay put when she starts in, and yet we all live in fear of upsetting Jackie. How can one person be so mean so as to still instill fear in three adults? If you really wonder, then you've never met her and that's about as much of a defense as I can muster.

The end is not yet in sight...

(I live in the same nation, only without the couch.)

So, I signed up for the National Novel Writing Month challenge. Essentially I need 50,000 words by November 30th of a new novel. I did this for a couple of reasons not the least of which is that I ended up falling out of "writing mode" when I got bogged down in preparing presentations for AP Biology proposals which, if decisions are made in my favor, would make life infinitely easier for me next year. So anyway, yes these were important presentations but they did sidetrack me from my goal of writing a book. I've also found that I could tinker away at this novel for a year and still not have the basic story down on paper. Enter NaNoWriMo.

I now have a goal, a very pressing goal to work towards. I am currently at 35,000 words and some change. For those of you who love to quantify things, 30,000 words is roughly 100 pages. It was for me, at least. There are a lot of people who criticize NaNoWriMo because it presses people to write too quickly and at the end of the month they may very well have an awful novel. My novel is awful. It is currently twisted and off-kilter in many areas. It's written badly and rambles in a few spots. I've even changed the plot line as I was writing and didn't bother to fix the parts that now don't make sense. Why? Editing is for December. At least that's what NaNoWriMo says. I agree.

I have no illusions that I'm going to be able to do one re-write of this book and have it publishable. It's too much of a mess for that. I do, however, believe that once I rewrite it, then I'll just need to do some more editing and it might be readable. You know, something I might give to my best friend and my sister and see what they have to say. I'll take their constructive criticism and run with it. Then, maybe then, will I send my book off to a publisher. So, don't think I don't realize how much more work lies in front of me once I accomplish this first draft.

The problem is that I don't write on a daily basis. Some days nothing comes. Some days only about 400 words leak out of my brain and onto the paper. I'm also a more effective writer when I write it out on paper, by hand. It's agonizing, but the stuff I write is much better in that form. So as I sit here with six days left and roughly 2500 words a day to write and Thanksgiving being a busy day and the Saturday after Thanksgiving also being thrown out the window I am suddenly hopeful.

Why?

I work best under pressure and baby, I am about to feel some pressure. I've cranked out 8 pages in a day before (That's 2500 words). I can crank out 16 in a day if I get inspired. I can write in every spare minute I have. I can get this story done. All I have left is a connecting bit and the end. I can do this. I will do this. Even if I'm currently procrastinating by writing on this stupid blog!

The Week In Review

I can hardly believe the week is over. I have been so absorbed in my writing that I haven't really been aware of much else in the world, as stupid as that can be. As far as the writing goes, yesterday I fell short of my goal of 2000 words. I only managed to get about 800 words written yesterday and I'm having a hard time feeling poorly about it. I started off this week with an incredible push and managed to write about 10,000 words by Wednesday. That is a huge amount. I'm not certain if I'll meet the 50k goal by November 30, but I have every intention of trying like mad. I have never written 100 pages of anything before and so I'm really kind of pumped about reaching the 100 page mark. This by no means indicates that what I'm writing is actually any good. In fact, I have this process in my head that I fully intend to follow. It will require me to finish my rough draft of the book, wait a few months and then revisit it. When I revisit, I fully intend to give it a complete rewrite and then I'll edit that. It seems like a lot of work, but I figure if writing were easy, then everyone would do it.

Dean has been working insane hours and so all this writing has been possible, if he had been home more often, I'm sure I'd have been watching television which is exactly what I was doing last night when I fell 1200 words short of my goal. I'm not too concerned because, when I get on a roll, I can crank out a good 8 pages a day. Not too shabby considering I also have a full time job.

Due to Dean's crazy hours and my obsession with writing, I also managed to drop the ball on Thanksgiving. I'm hosting for the Fruit side and while I had told my mother in law what day and time, I neglected to tell the rest of the family. Dean and I made quite a few apologetic and frantic phone calls last night. I'm sure this will count against me for a while and I probably deserve it. I know how hectic things can get around the holidays and here I am just lollygagging around and figuring everyone will be available when I want them to be. ha!

Work is actually on the downhill slide into final exams. I'm still finishing up a bit of stuff with the AP Biology class and crossing my fingers that everything is going to go as planned with that. I've been slacking off a bit with it lately because I took an entire month off writing because I was constantly slaving away with AP Bio and I figured it was time for me to chill out a bit. No one is looking for anything major from me for a while and I figure I've earned a bit of a break from it.

That's it. That's been my life this week. Writing, work and preparing for semester exams. Yippee.

Two Sides

(This right here is how most of the public seems to view teachers.)

At the faculty meeting last night there was an issue brought up of an institute day that somehow got left off of the official school calendar. Now, the administration was apparently going to make the teachers come in extra hours here and there to add up to the eight hour day. Personally, I hadn't heard of any of this until last night and I think I'm lucky I hadn't or I'd have been drug into the whole thing. There was a wave of teacher protest in the form of petitions and angry emails to our superintendent and I'm certain the union was involved which means it was an absolute miracle I wasn't contacted about it.

So anyway, my principal is explaining what is going to happen with this "lost contractual day" and he's showing his irritation at the whole thing and I know just from dealing with him before that he is annoyed with the teachers on this one. At the same time he's barely veiling his annoyance, the teacher next to me is telling me that she signed one of the petitions since "We all put in so much extra time as it is, it's completely ridiculous for them to make us come in for one extra day... as if we don't put in enough over time as it is!"

Oh right. So there are two sides to every coin and I have to admit that I see both sides of this one. Now normally, teacher institute days are staff development days and we do things other than lesson planning and grading papers so these days aren't exactly equivalent to those extra hours that we spend. On the other hand, I'm fairly certain that instead of having us all come in for an extra day at the end of the year (which would be pointless), they were just going to have us stay for an hour here and there after school.... something we ALREADY do. Telling us we must do this and account for our time IS a bit of an insult. For example, I am here every morning at 6:45 am. That is an hour before school starts. I am also occasionally here after work as well although I prefer to do extra work in the morning. For the administration to tell me I suddenly have to write down what I do every morning until I fill eight hours just seems to be nitpicky.

The letter we got from the superintendent stated he hated to lose a staff development day. I agree with him on that... however, the way in which they were going to have us make up for this day wasn't going to be productive and I understand why so many teachers got upset. What I don't understand is why the administration and seemingly a lot of the general public seems so eager to take our offense in the wrong way. I almost guarantee my principal saw it as us being lazy. I almost guarantee most of the administration saw it that way. I just don't understand this perception. I'm not saying there aren't exceptions to the rule but most of us work our butts off day in and day out and on weekends too. We care too much to do a poor job. Not only do we teach these kids and try to make the lessons engaging and entertaining, but we try to ensure each child gets individual attention. But wait, there is more. Each time we give a homework assignment, we give ourselves more work because we grade each one and give personal feedback so that too can be a learning experience. I work with teenagers and I have 135 students this year. That is 135 teenagers I have a personal relationship with. When is the last time you dealt with 135 teenagers and tried to cater to their interests and understood when they were having a bad day and asking about their lives so they know you care and are invested in them? It's tiring.

We are not lazy. We are not trying to cheat the system. We just want to be treated like the professionals we are.... which is something we just don't get.

Mini-Me

Anyone who has spent time amongst teenagers knows it takes a great deal of compassion and patience to work with these individuals. When I decided to get my teaching certificate I wasn't certain I had the compassion and patience. It isn't that I'm not a compassionate person, but it isn't in my nature to be outwardly so and I fully anticipated this to be a problem in my teaching career. Imagine my surprise when it wasn't a problem.

I have often said that having children is seeing your faults magnified and personified. Your children seem to mimic your worst features and play them back for you when they are young and I've watched my sister's children do this very thing to her. It makes me laugh and makes me shudder as I wonder what my own children will be like. My niece and nephew are still very young though and there is a seriousness to my pondering as I watch them grow older.

I have taught over one thousand students. That's one thousand teenagers with one thousand different personalities and well over ten thousand different issues and struggles. We teachers have a saying "meet the parent and you'll forgive the student" and it's the truth. So often our worst students have the most awful home life and it's not even the way you'd think. The children who are suffering from abuse and/or neglect are easy to spot. It's the children who are getting pressure at home to be perfect, the children whose parents try to be their friend rather than their parent, the children whose mother is sleeping with half the men in town that are the frightening ones. The actions of their parents manifest themselves in the strangest of ways and often it's not obvious. We literally must meet the parent to understand why the child is acting the way they are. It is then when the question becomes "can we teach them to rise above this influence?"

As our society has changed, the job of teaching has changed as well. It used to be that the community and the parents raised the children. Now, community means little as no one can really trust their neighbor and clubs and organizations that once were overrun with children now have difficulties pulling kids away from their video games, ipods and myspace pages. Our children have very few role models to choose from when they decide to model their behavior. As teachers, we've had to begin by starting to show them who and what they can be, give them the positive reinforcement they crave and the order and discipline they also crave. It may be hard to believe, a teenager desperately seeking order and discipline, but they do crave it. We teach them how to rise above their challenges, how to be good citizens, respect those who respect them and to somehow find out who they are in this crazy world. What bothers me is that parents have come to expect us to teach their children these lessons. I met with several parents today and with each set of parents I found a new and profound respect for their child. No wonder student A is struggling when her mother is so quick to agree that she's not smart enough to do well in science. No wonder student B has a lack of respect for me when his mother admits to me that she is often gone for days at a time because of her new boyfriend... won't I too just invest a bit of time in him and then be out of his life at the end of the school year?

Each year I begin by calling them my students and sometime during the school year I begin calling them my kids. I don't know when it happens and it's not a conscious decision. I wouldn't trade a single day of working with these teenagers, they are precious and have so much potential. It does however, frighten me when I think of having children of my own. What faults and insecurities will I give to my own children and will I recognize them as they manifest? Will I be one of these parents who expects something out of my child they are not capable of producing or will I expect too little of them? Will I, like so many other working moms out there forget to teach my own children how to be a good person? Or, through the gifts of this job I somehow chose to do, will I be able to have the presence of mind to raise them and nurture them as they will truly deserve?

I guess only time will tell.

It's a Lot Like Being on Star Trek

(You see this space ship right here? It's located somewhere in Wisconsin.)

"To seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."

My husband and I are well aware of our country upbringing. I'm sure many from urban regions would find us backwards in a variety of ways just as our families sometimes find us to be, as they like to put it, "citified." We most likely are not the only people in America in such a situation but I wonder if others merely cringe in horror while we seem to find humor in every single situation.

Take, for example, the funeral of my husband's grandmother. Now this is not normally a situation I'd make light of but it was the first time in a long time that I'd felt as though I had stepped onto another planet. At the visitation, my husband and I stepped outside to retrieve something from our car and found his aunt and uncle drinking beer out of the back of their pickup truck. I stood frozen in sheer horror as the scene sunk in. This woman's mother was inside in a casket and here she stood, drinking a beer in the parking lot. Of course, inside his uncle was standing right next to the casket in the receiving line wearing his very best Harley Davdison shirt. Probably not the nicest thing to pick on, but it did match very well with his mullet.

Of course, the real treat was the next day. His twenty year old cousin from California, who has lived in California since she was five.... brought a date. Not her boyfriend, not someone she's known for a while... but an actual date. She had met him two days earlier.

I was on another planet. I wouldn't say I was on another planet boldly going anywhere though.... my quiet snide remarks to myself were more cowardly and petty than bold and I admit it. Seriously though... you'd have been thinking it too!

Pennies from Heaven

(Can they look any more bizarre?)

"Every time it rains, it rains pennies from heaven..."

I've found quite often, that life is a matter of perspective. Laugh if you will, but over the course of my 30 years (and I'm beginning to be able to see that number as young), I've noticed that the good and the bad parts of life ebb and flow in a sort of pattern. Life will be good for a while, overwhelmingly good sometimes giving you the feeling that you've conquered your demons and are at the very least treading the water of life. The good dies out though as a string of bad inevitably takes it place. The bad stuff lingers, building upon itself making us all say "when it rains, it pours" as though we understand the ancient wisdom behind our string of bad luck.

So recently, I've felt as though I cannot catch a break. The myriad of things gone wrong lately has, at times, had me feeling quite blue. My lowest point would have to be just yesterday when I quite literally could have come home and pulled the covers up over my head and shut out the world. It was in the car on my drive home that something occurred to me. Even at the low point I had found myself; even when all I desired to do was escape from reality for a time... even then I knew my bad luck was temporary. I had caught myself thinking "man, I just need to ride this one out and then things can get back to normal around here."

There are a couple of things here. First, I know my bad luck is temporary. Life gives you ups and downs and it's amazing what you can get used to if you're willing to overlook the small things and focus on what you really have. Secondly, and most importantly.... what if life isn't supposed to "get back to normal?" What if I've been overlooking the obvious? Life gives us lessons, we learn from them (hopefully) and then move on, a little older and a little wiser. What if treading water until my life can go back to the way it was just isn't good enough?

I've been wishing for an umbrella to shelter me from this downpour of bad luck. Perhaps I should have been wishing for one so I could turn it upside down and catch the pennies. Negative experiences are a chance for growth and it is far too easy to forget that. So, I'll sit back and examine my life and maybe.... just maybe... I'll be smart enough to catch the lessons that need to be learned.

Tupperware

Dean's grandmother passed away Saturday evening. It was something we were anticipating, she's been in hospice care for a couple of weeks now. What I wasn't anticipating was the rush of emotions that hit me like a train traveling 100mph. I can't remember the last time my throat closed up like that, my chest felt that heavy, or I was that emotionally out of control. Adding insult to injury is that I wasn't upset about his grandmother, I barely knew the woman. I was upset about my own grandmother.
Five and a half years ago my own grandmother died of cancer. Until then, the woman had been the rock of my life, the only decent parent I've ever known. Her transition from this world to the next took place at home, over the course of 30 days while I attended to her with the help of hospice. Without those 30 days to say goodbye, I doubt I would have been able to function after her death. It's a silly thing, really. It's been five years and there is little reason for the flood of emotion I had last night but it did remind me of something.
When I was in high school, a friend of mine lost her sister in a tragic car accident and I remember her telling me "they say it takes seven years to get over the loss of someone close to you." At the time I'd never lost anyone close and seven years seemed an impossibly long time. Couldn't you be fine after a year? Most people seemed fine after six months. How could it possibly take seven years? I guess I've got a better idea of that now and my mind struggles to understand it even today as I feel as though my heart was broken anew.
Last night, it was as if someone had opened the lid on some tightly sealed container I had in the back of my heart. It's the container we all have, the one we shove the bad stuff into, the things we need to shove away to retain our sanity and be able to move on with our lives. At the moment we shove things into that container we mentally tell ourselves we will be back, we will deal with it in a little while after we've had a chance to breathe. Do we ever really go back on our own? Five years after my grandmother's death I've only had that container opened a few times and each time it has hit me so strongly that I'm left to wonder if that container is the right choice. If I take it out and air it, will the wound heal?
I don't know.
All I know is I wish I could get the lid back on it.

Vote for Pedro

I dislike election years and it's not because I despise politics, as I've led many who know me to believe. I am honestly quite passionate about politics although I do refuse to discuss it with a great number of people and for the simple reason that I do not wish to think less of them.

About two weeks ago one of my regular FM stations inexplicably turned into a talk-radio station, a political talk-radio station at that whose views are progressive. On my way to work I am now entertained by a man named Bill Press who I feel is highly entertaining as his views are incredibly skewed most of the time, but they're skewed in my favor and so I don't mind. One of the topics he's been discussing lately has been his view of "sharing the wealth." He believes that raising taxes on those who make over $250,000 a year is absolutely justified. He's mentioned he makes over that and feels a sense of duty to pay more in taxes for all of the benefits this country affords him. What a nice view. Unfortunately, most people are not that giving. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Most people who have a lot, give the least and this is what I feel the primary difference between Republicans and Democrats really is.

It was well over a year ago now and most likely two years ago that a friend of mine managed to engage me in a political debate. At one point in the conversation he directed me to a commencement speech given by a Republican. I've tried to find this speech, trust me, but apparently a lot of Republicans give commencement speeches. The culmination of this man's speech was basically this: He felt that the young college kids were silly in their ideals to go out and help others, to put effort into other people and to vote for the good of all. He ended his speech by saying that he would do his own work, further himself and vote to protect his own needs. My friend, who had given me this speech was a Republican and he thought this speech was the zinger that would end my argument, something my tender Democratic beliefs couldn't possibly recover from. He was right, I ended our friendship.

I cannot believe how so many people who have so much, want to help others so little. I do not understand why they think those of us who would work to make the world a better place are silly. What astonishes me even more is that so many people want to have wealth so badly, they idealize those who have it, going so far as to mimic the opinions of the wealthy. How else can you explain why the general public treats our teachers so poorly? How else can you explain why all of our public servants are treated so poorly? The wealthy look down on unions because they cost them money when they are forced to deal with their workers fairly. The wealthy look down on road workers, construction workers, plumbers, electricians... people without whom we would be utterly screwed. And why do people do these things? You tell me.

So, I will continue to make little money at an almost thankless job because I believe in people. I believe our children need a chance at a decent education and need someone who cares to teach them. I will continue to roll my eyes at those who wonder why I'd sign up for such a job, or even those who try to take advantage of my good nature. I'm compassionate... not stupid. Go check yoself foo.

Mama Never Told Me.....

With the onset of the cold weather, I've again had to think about my thermostat settings. Now, I strongly believe that the programmable digital thermostat is one of man's best inventions however, it does present something of a dilemma. At the beginning of every cold season you are forced to make a decision: Shall you live on the wild side and put the thermostat at a comfortable level or should you live as you know you're supposed to and set it to a level that is slightly chilly? This decision has become more than mere preference.
I remember the days when my mother and father were obsessive about the electricity. It was an expensive thing, something to be spared and used only when absolutely necessary. I learned to turn my lights off when I wasn't in the room, to be sure to double check to make sure radios weren't left running unnecessarily, and - most importantly - I learned to freeze during the winter. Something astonishing happened when I graduated college and got my own place. I skimped on food, clothing, shampoo and conditioners, beauty products of all kinds, but I splurged on my electricity. I reveled in leaving the lights on when I left and giggled when the electric bill came because it wasn't the five thousand dollar charge my parents would have led me to believe. A lot has changed since those days.
ComEd raising their prices so aggressively after their rate freeze wasn't the most brilliant idea, they have a lot of consumers upset. I'm also left to wonder why I don't get an option as for my electricity provider, but that's another story entirely. There is a small part of me that is grateful electricity is again expensive and the primary reason is that people (including me) will abuse it as long as it is cheap. Our planet cannot handle the waste of resources that the United States represents. We are consumers, there is no other nation that consumes like the United States. In fact, we like to consume AND not have to be bothered with clean up and so we use disposable products which is even worse. Unless being wasteful becomes prohibitively expensive, we will continue to waste. There are very few people in the US who take our current crisis seriously enough that they think about it on a daily basis. Until we can become responsible, we're just going to have to make things too expensive to waste.
So, while I will grumble as I pay my outrageously high electric bill... I will also smile deep inside knowing the same expense is causing many people to use resources wisely.

On the Productivity of Meetings

Perhaps one of the most telling aspects of one's personality is the way he/she deals with stress. There are those of us who seem to be constantly in a "stressed out" state; running around with wild hair, disheveled clothing, a stack of disorganized papers and a wild look in the eyes. Then there are those who usually have things under control, moving through life almost flawlessly. These are the people who are annoyingly punctual, who always come prepared like the proverbial boy scout and who, aside from a few personality quirks, always seem to have it "sooo together." There is a third category of people who never become stressed and they, obviously, have prescription medication and while I might envy them, I'm not here to write about them. It is the other two categories I'm interested in.

Now Category A, the perpetually stressed, has seemed to me to be the category to put the whiners and complainers in. It is my perception (and boy don't I know it's just my perception) that these are people who just generally cannot deal with problems. They lack foresight and run into hurdles constantly. These people fail to complete a grocery list, relying instead upon their amazing mind powers of remembrance envisioning themselves walking briskly in and out of the grocery store deftly placing all necessary items into their cart as they glide through the aisle. What really happens is that, once in the grocery store, the sensory overload makes them forget everything but the most mundane item on their mental list. This will create a need to return to the grocery store two more times, the final time will be successful only because our mental prodigy has now decided to write out a list. This does, however, place them an hour behind schedule as whatever they were creating was remembered at the last moment due to a failure to have written the date down on a calendar. Our Category A person will be late to their event, their culinary masterpiece will have failed due to repeated stopping and starting and they will need to stop and buy something at the nearest bakery. Not only will their eyes be wild but their children will be raving lunatics due to having been carted to the same grocery store three times and denied a candy bar all three times. Yes, I am saying that Category A creates their own stress.

Now Category B, these people are planners. They may not have elaborate weekly calendars, but they are writing things down. These people create grocery lists in their spare time; written neatly on a napkin while they eat their lunch. When something goes wrong, the Category B individual will take a moment to consider the best course of action. Instead of returning to the store two more times for forgotten items, our Category B person would have quickly calculated the time wasted on additional grocery trips and made a mental note to stop by the bakery after they are done preparing for their event. They will even arrive annoyingly early due to having set aside too much time for running to the bakery. The most annoying part of being a Category B person is waiting for all those Category A people. While our Category B person is sitting and waiting for Category A to show up, they are calmly running through upcoming events, reminding themselves of important dates and most likely balancing their checkbook.

Yes, I would put myself in Category B. My gripe of the moment is that I seem to work with a massive amount of people who belong to Category A. This leads to meetings where we discuss what we should have done to prepare for the meeting. We will then set up an additional meeting to discuss what should have been discussed in the original meeting but couldn't be due to no one being prepared. When we meet the second time, only half of them will have remembered to prepare so the meeting will only be semi-productive. This frustrates me to no end. The reason they give you a meeting agenda a couple of days before the meeting is so that you can prepare.

I'm also quite certain it is the Category A people who sit and chit chat about mundane things during the planned meeting time, pushing back the meeting start time about fifteen minutes. This not only frustrates me, but puts me behind schedule. The Category A people would realize it puts them behind schedule as well if they were keeping a schedule. And I guarantee, at some point during the meeting, not only will Category A say "Oh, I hate meetings, they take up so much of my time and nothing ever gets done." but they will also complain about never having enough time. You do it to yourself people.