Carnivores Beware

Scene: large farm, somewhere in the midwest. There's a holding pen for cows, and a long, confusing path lined with metal fences - the kind you walk through when waiting in line at an amusement park. It leads to the slaughter house.

I harness a big black and white cow, the perfect Cover Girl model of a cow which you see in commercials for cheese. Harness in place, I attempt to lead her into the maze. She won't budge. I say to her, "Come on, let's go." but she takes a step back and shakes her head. The same way my dog does, as if she's saying NO very emphatically.

I jokingly ask her, "Did you just tell me no?" and she looks right in my eyes, and almost imperceptibly she gives a small nod. I'm sure I've imagined this. I shake my head, trying to clear it, and again give her a gentle pull. Instead of moving forward, she again steps back, only this time I'm sure she's shaking her head "no."

Tentatively I ask her if she knows where we're going, and I see abject terror in her eyes. At this moment, I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that SHE KNOWS what's happening, and does not want it. She wordlessly begs for her life to be spared.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the moment I stopped being able to eat meat.

*That last part isn't true. However, I've become increasingly aware of the basic concept that an animal must die if I am to eat meat, and it's seriously starting to bother me. Honestly, I like eating meat. I do. I've got quite the moral conflict going on here.

All Aboard the Backpedal Express

Higher education is for the birds.

I've done a lot of shit talking about online universities. Like, A LOT. Now I find myself in the unfortunate position of having to consider taking that route. Damnit.

It's not as if I attend an Ivy League school, or even Big 10 for that matter. Nope, just a lowly little state university that I chose for it's low tuition and the strong reputation of their teacher training programs. *sigh* Now I'm preparing to graduate with my BA in history, and NOT my BA in education. A history degree on its own is worth just about as much as the contents of my nail polish collection. So I need to find another school which will accomodate my need to NOT pay $100K for school (because seriously, my student loans are already stacking up in a very ominous way) and the need to take classes in the evenings or weekends.

My school researching has presented me with many options. Not many FEASIBLE options, but options just the same. Today I sadly realized that Western Governors University may be the way to go. I hate it when I'm wrong. Although, in my defense, the WGU program revolves around getting you the same state certifications and licenses that Northeastern does - which is the only reason I'm considering it. You won't ever catch me saying, "Well I got my second BA from WGU!" On the contrary, all you'll hear from me - hopefully - is, "Why yes, I am a licensed teacher."

Life is short. Goals can so easily be set aside when things don't go the way we planned. Hear me now: This place is cursed, damned, and yes, your master is the devil! Oops, sorry, I went a little Louis in Interview With the Vampire there. What I meant to say was that I will not let that happen. We will not flag or fail, we will fight.... Um, was that Winston Churchill? Or was that Mel Brooks' take on Winston Churchill?

Anyway, stay tuned for the exciting adventures of moving from a shoddy state university to a shady online one!

Best Response Ever, said The Grim Reaper

So here at work, my laptop crashed late yesterday. I let one of the partners know (as my boss is out for his mother's funeral today - to which our dept sent nice flowers. But I digress...) so this morning I told her I'd see what I could do with it. WELL the damn thing is dead. Thank baby jeebus someone here plays an IT person on tv, because he was able to recover the files from my hard drive using only a bottle opener. (yes, we employ Macgyver) I then tell the boss lady that my laptop is officially dead, and I head to the kitchen to toast my bagel.

And the toaster breaks.

The CEO walks in as I'm cursing the toaster, and I told him that everything I've broken everything I touch today.

Then I spread my arms and say, "Come gimme a hug!"

Drowning

Proverbially drowning, of course. Because I can swim pretty well actually. But what I can't do is math. I'm drowning in numbers and letters (which should never go together) and arbitrary rules and stupid tricks to solve problems which are asinine in the first place.

I've realized that my inability to even understand the directions given is surely hampering my ability to learn and apply the math lessons. It's even worse than I imagined it would be. Somehow I believed that attending a math class would mean someone would, you know, teach me math. No, that's not what is occurring here. What is occurring is that I sit in class and watch a few examples, and then I get shit loads of homework that I don't know how to do. It's frustrating, infuriating, and absolutely demoralizing. I'm left getting angry with myself for not inherently knowing these things, which is ludicrous.

Fuck yo' math! My anger at being forced to take this irrelevant shit is pushing into the red now, and the stress is physically making me sick.

The Safe Bet Award Goes to ...

Some people take chances. Big chances, like quitting their jobs to go back to school, opening non-conventional businesses, or moving to a new country.

That's not me. At all. Like, ever.

Chicago Fire (some show with the cute German looking kid from House, I'm told it's very popular but all I know for sure is that is ties up traffic all over my neighborhood. But I digress) has prompted some interesting talk from my kids. My little one asked me what if they asked me to be on the show. Immediately I said no. Of course not. I'd never do that.

But not for the reason he thinks.

Say you quit your day job for a tv show, and it doesn't get picked up next season? Then what?

Or, say you are forced to quit your job in order to become certified to teach, but then you don't find a teaching job?

That's exactly what's on my mind as I tell my little one that I have zero interest in being a tv star. After this stupid low level math class this summer, I have exactly 8 classes left to reach my goal of being a certified teacher. In order to finish the last one, I must spend 16 weeks as a student teacher, which means being on staff - unpaid - at a school. How does one spend 16 weeks in a classroom - UNPAID! - when she has children to take care of and a mortgage to be paid?

Well I haven't quite figured that part out yet.

The Ones We've Lost

My favorite uncle was Jewish, a fact completely lost on me until I was 16 or so. He was born 50 years before me, in Feb 1928. His parents came here from Russia in 1905. When I became Red Cross certified as a lifeguard, he gave me the engraved pocket knife he received as a lifeguard many years before. He's been gone for just over 10 years now, and I still miss him every day. Recently I found a stash of cards and postcards he sent to me over the years. None signed with his real name, of course. I looked back at the online funeral guestbook, and I can see that those who knew and loved him most, didn't sign with their real names, either. Most notably are the entries from Henrietta and Beulah Blackheart.

In 1991 I met my godfather's new girlfriend, and I shared the line my grandmother (the aforementioned Beulah Blackheart) had asked me to recite. "Oh, goody, you've brought me a playmate!" You see, she was young, maybe 25 or so. Thankfully she didn't hold it against me. I was a snotty know-it-all teenager, and they were dragging me out of town to a "rustic" weekend in the country. To say I was unhappy would be a grave understatement. She understood my tiny teen angst, and befriended me. She was funny, sweet, and her kid was adorable times a hundred. We lost her in 1992, and it still makes my heart hurt. This week I saw a picture of her son, all grown up, and couldn't help but see her in his eyes. I remember how she laughed when he dropped his first F bomb at 4. When his park outing was cut short and he said, "Ah shit, it's starting to fuckin' rain." She laughed and said, "Well at least he used it the right way!"

They say that time heals all wounds. They are wrong.

...And I'm not afraid to use it!

Someone thought it a fine idea to provide me with a button maker, and materials. Silly person. I've made a round of grumpy cat buttons for my co-workers, and taught others how to spend their office time making funny, irreverent buttons. Because caring is sharing!

Today I was feeling a bit like an intellectual snob, throwing around my $10 words and referring to some people as mouth breathers. (well, I think I actually said "knuckle dragging mouth breathers, but whatever) You know a good fix for that? My first scheduled math tutoring session this afternoon. Quite sure I'll leave there feeling chastened where my intellect is concerned.