Dear Santa

This video made me cry. Twice. I hope that at this time of year especially we are all thankful for those who make sacrifices so that we can celebrate. 

Drama, Drama, Drama

3. Emo

like a Goth, only much less dark and much more Harry Potter. 

My life sucks, I want to cry.

from urbandictionary.com

Like most couples, the nightly conversations between Sean and I usually begin with, "So, how was your day?" It seems like most nights he rushes through the enthralling accounting of a day in the life of an insurance underwriter to get to my stories. While he usually has some doozies about attempted fraud and general idiocy, I spend my days (and nights at the tutoring center) with teenagers. And we all know what that means: drama, drama, drama. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I've always got a good one. 

 The hardest thing about teaching is learning to pee by the bell. I'm a pretty thirsty person and am used to draining four to five nalgenes within an eight hour period. Well, I'm no longer free to go to the bathroom whenever I want. I've got approximately five minutes every 90 minutes to battle the herds of female students, staff, and faculty to get to the bathroom and back before the bell rings. I can't just take the pass and leave during the class period. The high school I'm student teaching at doesn't have separate facilities for the staff, and you'd be surprised how much you overhear in the bathroom. 

Case in point: Tuesday morning. I stood patiently in the bathroom line stretching out the door. Two girls, both of whom I know from class, crowded in front of a mirror. Both of these girls are good students and very polite. The type of kid you can't really describe any other way but, "She's a really good kid." I wasn't surprised to hear them chattering excitedly, trying to determine the best color description for their t-shirts-- "I think mine is more like a creamsicle colors. Yours? Hmmm... yours would be like wisteria or something, right?" My English teacher heart warmed to hear them playing with word choice and description so enthusiastically. Questions of shirt color settled, out came the requisite makeup and hair accessories. The excitement began anew. In teen jargon, both of these girls would be probably be best classified as "emo." As one girl tried to get her eyeliner exactly right, the other pouted at her hair. She repeatedly pulled her hair in and out of pigtails, all the while consulting with her friend in the same excited tone. Well, as excited as I was about these girls developing strong word choice, they've obviously yet to grasp the concept of creating appropriate tone. The bubbling excitement just didn't match her statement: "I kinda like the pigtails, but the pigtails can kinda be happy. And we are not happy." Her friend nodded emphatically and suggested that instead she pull her bangs (dyed black and chopped bluntly) into her eyes. 

I had to bite my lip and stare at the floor to keep from bursting out laughing. Did we ever take ourselves so very seriously as teenagers??

Oh, and a thanks!

And thanks to Jill Washburn for choosing/putting up the background for me!

Oh, Blogging....

So, as I'm sure anyone who has bothered to read this thing can tell, I'm VERY new to blogging. So new, in fact, as to be labeled clueless (see previous post where my attempt to copy and paste quiz results obviously failed. My color is turquoise, by the way). A good friend pointed out to me earlier this evening that blogging isn't really that hard, it's just like typing in any other word processor. Well, here's the thing: I need to learn to do more than that with my blog. In approximately six months, I'll have my MA in teaching as well as my teaching license from the State of Oregon. This scares the bejesus out of me-- how did I get old enough to teach high school?? At any rate, I have it on very good knowledge (my technology across the curriculum prof) that blogging is the new hot thing in the the classroom to push those oh-so-important reading and writing scores, increase research skills, increase student buy-in, communicate with the parentals,  and generally just look cool for students. I'm okay with any and all of those things. The more the better! But the problem is, that will all backfire horribly if I don't learn how to blog effectively... and so here we are. I don't need this just as a journal, but instead I need to learn to post pictures, links, embed videos. We're talking the whole shebang here, people. I promise to make some of the posts interesting, not just all politics and teachery stuff if you'll help me learn how to do those things listed above. Thanks!

What Color Are You?

A Continuation

A few more thoughts I should have shared in the last post... 

John McCain gave an amazingly graceful concession speech on Tuesday evening. This did not surprise me. I've always admired Senator McCain, his impressive record of service to this country both in uniform and in office, and, at the risk of sounding cliche, his mavericky libertarian streak that kept him from bowing to party politics prior to running in this election. He had one line, however, that caused me pause and I would encourage him to reconsider: 

"This is an historic election. I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans, for the special pride that must be theirs tonight." 

No, Senator, this pride cannot go to one specific group of people. It must go to the nation as a whole. This pride cannot be limited to a racial viewpoint. Women gained more seats in Congress this year and, once again, we are at an historic high of female senators and representatives. Sarah Palin represented women on a major party ticket (regardless of my personal feelings for her, this is impressive). 

And these individuals did not win these races strictly because of their skin color, or their sex. They won their positions because they were--and are-- the best candidates for the position in the eyes of a majority of constituents. And that, Senator, is what the entire nation must take pride in. For the first time in our nation's history, our society is collectively at a point where minorities and women have the resources available to them to groom their natural abilities and prove they are the most qualified candidates for the highest positions of leadership in our nation. 

Perhaps the PC training I've been receiving in this master's program has done to my head, but I still cannot get over how amazing this all is. 

2008

Somewhere around the age of 16, I fell in love. I'm talking head-over-heels, heart throbbing, swooning love. With politics. Yes, politics. And though I've been at times fickle, changing sides and issues as quickly as puppy love emotions tend to, I'm still in deep and true. 

This election has done more to build that love. I'll be honest, I'm an Obama supporter. Not because I think he's perfect and support every single tenet he espouses, but because he's our best choice right now. But Obama's not why this election has built this affinity of mine. He is: 

In the summer of 1955, Emmett Till was 14. He traveled from Chicago to Missouri to spend the vacation time with relatives. Trying to impress his cousins, Emmett whistled at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant. Her husband took none too kindly to this. Roy Bryant recruited his half-brother to help teach Emmett a lesson. 

The two thirty-something-year-old men beat Emmett and gouged out his eyes before shooting him in the head, tying a 75-pound cotton gin around his neck with barb wire and dropping him in the river. His mother insisted on an open casket so that others might see what racism had done to her son.

Now, barely more than half of a century later, the son of a white woman and black man is being endorsed for president by a major political party. And, on the other side of the aisle, we have a woman on a viable ticket.  (Sorry, Geraldine Ferraro. You ran with Walter Mondale. Your ticket received about 17 electoral votes. That was never a viable ticket). If we start on my feminist side, this post will never end. 

So, my friends, this election has truly brought to light a wave of change in America, regardless of who is on top at the end of the night--and let's hope it's the end of the night, not the end of the month. America has a lot of problems. A lot. And let's be honest, folks: some of our biggest problems come straight from our politicians. However, we've come so far in such a relatively short period of time on so many fronts, and this election shows that. 

The only hope I'm clinging on to at this point is that at the end of the night, whoever wins, will take this momentum and keep building.