I'm carryin the wheel - the search for validation

It's the mid-day and I've managed to drag myself from my house into the humid, sticky day. Clouds cascading the sky, warm air peters into my window and blowing in my face. It's a nice day, and while most people would disregard this as a "shitty weather" type of day, I'm fine with it. I like the clouds and I like when it rains, and I like this humid but generally cooler weather that is associated with this type of climate at this time of year.

Then, all of a sudden, while passing by the old Exxon station, I see something that wipes the joy out of the moment. On the car in front of me, a sticker reads:

2 TEACH is
2 TOUCH a life
4 EVER

So, boys and girls, I pose a question. Why is it that teachers need to add this level of importance, this prestige to their title?

And I'm not, for fear of the over-cynicism of my future career, denigrating the importance of a teacher in a student's life. Teachers can teach many things, on and off the books. And yes, they can recognize that potential in students and give them an opportunity they couldn't have afforded in any other way. And this has happened.

However.

Why is it so necessary to strive to gain this kind of attention-seeking recognition? Teachers who do this seem to be the adult version of a girl who, say, creates drama or says she's pregnant to capture attention or to trap a guy in a relationship.

Teachers do good work. They educate, and education is important because the acquisition of it can lead to pursuing future careers, realizing the self, and affording opportunities. Furthermore, a teacher should theoretically care about their students (nevermind the experience I've had in the teacher's lounge, where teachers poke fun at their students for mistakes or personality or disabilities or whatever).

But ya know what? A lot of other professions do good things too. Policemen, when not being tools and ticketing for retarded bullshit, sometimes may or may not help people and preserve safety within a community. Plumbers may rotorooter your toilet so it's not blocked up with shit anymore. The librarian stocks books and shit. Et cetera. Most careers fill some sort of niche in society that is useful for one thing or another.

Yeah, there's that occasional situation where a teacher takes interest in a student and through their support the student, say, doesn't kill themselves or something. But really, this isn't a teacher saving a life. This is a person. Anyone could be this person.

Here I'm going to do what you're supposed to do with blogs, and refer to a different blog, which is to be found here. Here's an actual teacher talking about the trials and tribulations of her profession, but how it's so worth it because of the job she is able to do. Bullshit, I say. Everyone has hardships at their job and any person could act as a role model for a child.

A few translations:
"2 teach is 2 touch a life 4ever" = I have no other purpose in my life but my job which happens to be an indispensable service...therefore I'm important.

apple sticker on a car = A teacher feels it necessary to point out the fact of their self-worth

"a good teacher is long remembered" = a teacher may be remembered in passing for remembering something or having sweet projects or a cool personality.

From the desk of Yeshua - male personalities through piss

There are three types of guys.
1) The guy who pisses on the seat and doesn't clean it up
2) The guy who will only clean up the piss he has left.
3) The guy who will piss on the seat, and clean up others' piss also.

Sure, this is kind of silly, but I think it works as a metaphor.

1. These are the selfish guys, who piss all over the world, so to speak. Napoleonic and warmongery, these men take and take, and have a brash, egocentric philosophy on the world.

2. These guys are individualists, and while they are at least responsible for their own actions, there's an implied weakness in them. Because of this weakness, they inherently bear a grudge to the world for which problems arise, and are bothered by the other two categories. Egocentric in their own way, they only take responsibility for themselves.

3. Perceived as the most pathetic guys, these Gandhi-loving (and often-quoting) individuals take the world upon their shoulders.


What is clear is that all these are flawed, and obviously there's no such thing as a good man without any time of inherent.

And I'm tired of writing this

The undeniable apathy

So as summer passes by and fail to meet my personal deadlines in pretty much any aspect, I find myself wondering, "Why?"

I realize apathy itself as a word is something that makes people groan. It makes me groan when I hear it. I think it's just attached itself to that emo or that lazy person who uses it to transfer responsibility away from themselves.

Right now I find myself in an on-campus computer lab. I was basically just a TA for a class as part of my work for our writing center. It was great, but I still have a sorta reticence to interfere and to check on students when they're working. The prof was pretty encouraging.

I find myself very often fretting about student teaching. Day by day, what will I do? My coop has given me these resources but I still have yet to really get into what I'm going to do day by day. And what's more mystifying is I seem to just be blowing off my responsibilities in it.

There's some kind of illogical duality here...why would I not work on something I'm worried about? It seems more complicated than laziness; it feels like some sort of defense mechanism. I'm really just...afraid, I guess. I kinda fucked up on my junior bloc experience, and I'm real worried this shit isn't gonna go well, and my coop is just very laissez-faire, and it makes me nervous to experiment.

I dunno.

Other than that, Summer has been the same. I don't know why people always think during the school year that summer will be so awesome. It never is. Summer is boring because instead of the 20-30 friends you normally have around that can bullshit around school schedules, there's 3-5 friends that are usually working heavily or doing nothing and bored. I have my own ways of coping, and they're pretty successful. I wow, and I wow hard. It's been good, despite my account being hacked recently; instead, I've been playing an an alternate character. I got my own back recently, and am planning my three day work week in that regard.

I'm tutoring and kinda (?) working at Average Joe's. I haven't calle dthem this week for availability, but it's not like I have any repurcussions for shitting all over them. My job is awful and great at the same time.

Writing-wise, I've done my normal in-class exposition. Right now I've been on-and-off excited about a series. I wrote sort of a prologue to what could be a large collection of stories (and really seems like more the opening to a television series) about four guys who move far away. Call them expatriates; these guys for whatever reason felt held down in their former places of residence, and now the world is open to them after moving. Of course, this is based upon my often preoccupation with the idea that this area is shit, and I can go pretty much anywhere else and it would be monumentally better in every regard. It's not so much in a blind idealism way as it sounds. This area just has nothing spectacular about it, and there are so many better place I could be than here. I've wasted this part of my life in Millersville at a mediocre university. And it would just sadden me endlessly if I didn't believe in some sort of religious repeat system (call it reincarnation if you will). However, I don't need to continue living in this place that I don't like at all. I need to get out of here, and my characters felt the same way.


Why do people want to stay here? What is so great about it? Why do people go away to college to open up endless possibilities for themselves just to move back to their hometown. Ugh. I'll probably write the prologue here when I have time, but now I have class. Later.

"The truth is is I just hate when people are who others expect them to be"