One Day My Mind Opened Up

  To Those Of You That Know Me
This should come as NO surprise

You Are a Realist

You don't see the glass as half empty or half full. You see what's exactly in the glass. You never try to make a bad situation seem better than it is... But you also never sabotage any good things you have going on. You are brutally honest in your assessments of situations - and this always seems to help you cope.

  ¶ 7:56 AM

  A Voice In The Dark
Five years ago, I had an incident that reminded me that, despite seeing myself as a "society of one", I can't always face the world alone.

I figure that I had finally realized that I may be unemployed for awhile and that I may need to look outside IT for a "temporary job" until something opened up. The NCAA Tournament was on and I watched Ohio State win their 1st round game. From there I headed to Arby's for dinner and off to the Barnes and Nobel for the monthly gathering of a local poetry group.

Now this was not your typical buncha poets. Other than me, they were mostly high school kids. Their creativity was well beyond their years. Well this day things turned renegade, the moderator no-showed; we decided to read anyhow and got the OK from the store managment, as long we kept it down and kept things clean.

After this we had a little birthday party for one of the other members, and I realized that kids like these existed in my circle of friends, but I never really took the time. I found myself doubting myself and went home with this cloud following me. I decided to call my Brother, for reasons I don't yet understand. I had to leave a message.

The next day I felt even worse, I managed to slog through my day and decided to sit down and watch the movie version of Contact(read the book, it's a LOT better).

So about 1/2 way into the film, the phone rings! It's my brother, who tells me that I didn't sound too well. I explain why and this begins a conversation that lasts a good 45 minutes to an hour.

I couldn't believe he of all people was helping. Here was a kid who had managed to get everything I had wanted and could have easily thought "he's getting what he deserves", but decided to help me out anyhow.

His final words may have been the best advice I could have received; "Watch some of the tourney or some TV, go to bed and start over tomorrow."

So I did, and I felt a lot better the next day.

It wasn't until two years later when he drove me home from the rehersal dinner for his wedding that he gave me the only answer to why he did what he did that made any sense to me:

"You don't turn your back on your own".  ¶ 12:13 PM

  The Writing On The Wall
You ever get the feeling something bad is about to happen?

Some news from my high school Alma Mater has me a bit worried; the first item is that our superintendent is retiring, the second is that our school board held a "closed door" meeting. I can only think that this is leading to one thing.

That one thing is that my hometown school district will soon be taken over by the State of Pennsylvania. The State has a system whereby is schools can't meet certain academic performance standards, the State can come in an take control of them. Once they improve, the school is returned to the control of the community/district. I don't believe any school that has been put on this list has gotten off--yet.

But at some level this may be just the "wake-up call" my hometown needs. The way members of my hometown have criticized the high school principal, whose efforts to try and enforce some academic standards affected our football team, may show a kind of "tunnel vision" that affects many small towns and minority communities alike. The idea that athletics is about the only way for young people to escape. A media and shoe industry that fuels this false hope isn't helping matters much either.

The other issue is that this may be a bit generational. Years ago, students in my hometown could go from high school to a steel mill. The union would make sure wages kept pace with cost of living and maybe one of their kids would go off to college, get a better job and kinda help the family along.

Now the reality is college, trade school, or Wal-Mart. Where one gets trapped in a low-wage, low-benefit job (or jobs), and it's likely that the kids will get trapped in the same cycle. Many schools haven't, or don't want to, adjust to the reality that there are few low-skill jobs that pay decently.

Now I also have some ideas on what steps the State should take should they come in and take over; for one, keep the principal, since I think he has the right idea, two, uniforms, maybe if the kids weren't so concerned about looking like what they see on MTv or BET they'd put some more energy into study, third, parental accountability, I think the parents need to learn how media and culture may be affecting their children and how to create a sense of resistance to it, finally, if all else fails, suspend all extra-curricular activities that aren't co-curricular, in short school musicals, etc are OK, but no more sports teams until things get better.

This situation may be the big decision that my hometown needs to make, a decision to fight back and try to live, or truly decide to simply die.

Labels: Farrell, schools, sports

  ¶ 9:43 AM

  This Should Surprise NO ONE!

Your Personality is Very Rare (INTP)

Your personality type is goofy, imaginative, relaxed, and brilliant. Only about 4% of all people have your personality, including 2% of all women and 6% of all men You are Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving.

  ¶ 11:20 PM