Got a girlfriend?

So I'm driving someone to watch a romantic drama, one about a soldier back home from his tour of duty and he meets the love of his life. You probably know what movie she watched.

I am cruising down the 87 south towards Santa Teresa Ave, trying to get to Oakridge Mall, she she remarks, "got a girlfriend yet? I just have to get to the chase." Regretably I'm aback by that statement, I form up some excuse of a rebuttal and it comes out to "don't have the time..."

It's funny, someone even remarked that due to my poor organization skills, I needed someone to keep me on time and at the right place, like a mom who yells get up like a pre determined alarm clock. MY mom's like that. She's wakes up early.

Well, it made me think about my own understanding of relationships, particularly of the opposite gender. As Harry and Sally talked about, can men and women be friends? Well, I suppose I have friends who are women and also those who are men. But what I find trouble with is going deeper beyond the friendliness and into that place where you search for companionship.

Adam had Eve, Han had Leia, but what about J$?

It seems to me that this is a question that I ask myself everyday. I'm getting older as a twenty something, I still haven't found my sweetheart after getting out of college and I still live at home.

Another ramble brought to you by yours truly

- jaymoney.

Day One of Break

December 14, 2009

For my own memory which is horrible, I pledge to keep a record of this break in the form of a journal.

First off, I woke up late. I knew I had to wake up earlier and observe a classroom, but I decided to rest for a few mins. What happens in a few mins became a half hour. Way late.

I rush into my car, steep some strong green tea and I grab some quick breakfast at a burger king drive thru. fast food, ugh, but its food.

With the smell of grease permeating the interior of my P.O.C. (piece of crap) car, I am lost in the web of freeway overpasses and strip malls. It's Story and King and I think I'm in Little Saigon. I finally realize that I missed the street sign, hidden by the glare of the bright afterrain sun and I make a left turn.
I'm in the classroom, my pen in hand cradling my notepad. My friend teacher's trying to appeal to her student's common interest by relating a letter to a teacher as a form of setting lifelong goals.

Such a uplifting story, to share how as a high schooler she had high aspirations and looking back after college and receiving that letter written a long time ago, like a time capsule, everything seemed to fit and work itself out. Ah, the joy of teaching....

Ok, I'm running some errands, spend a great deal of time shopping for a USB/AC power outlet adaptor. I'm home, slurping on my mom's noodles and chomping on wontons submerged ina light chicken stock and I'm watching Spike Lee's "When The Levees Broke" and it brings me to tears.

My mom returns, and I retire to my room, set on working on the household finances. I work on em some more, dinner arrives. Some friends are leaving out of the country, I hand them a Xmas present and bid them safe journey. Order a few things on Amazon, listen to my podcasts, twittle my thumbs for a bit and here I am.

Another unproductive winter day.

End of day one. 37 outta 38 days left of break...

Now what was it?

I'm trying to remember but I was going to write today. It's funny how sometimes you have a a - ha moment but then you forget what you recalled which dawned on you. Walking around a vast body of water, talking in dialogue with my cohort I feel a sense of continuity in my experience. That some where some how we have our prior knowledge and experiences that have brought us to this point. Some are married, working, about to be married, are in relationships, have children, made career switches. And its all for the same purpose, the same goal of becoming a teacher. It's funny, I look back at how I wanted to be a teacher in my undergrad years. I remember reading Jonathan Kozol's "Ordinary Resurrections" and Mike Roses " Lives on the Boundaries" and it made me see the educator not one who simply teaches and receives tenure after a few years. But I saw such hope and vision that the future could be better, that we, in the present may not know or see how our pupils turn out or how our instruction may lead or guide them.

However, its in the day to day, the relationships and conversations in the classroom with our students that we the teacher create the culture, make change happen in ways that we ourselves never thought possible.

Perhaps this is what Rafe Esquith said when he referred to "teaching like your hair's on fire" or when Robin Williams urged his pupils to constantly "seize the day."

each time I think about what made me want to become a teacher, I go back into my memories of who I was. I still have a letter from sixth grade teacher who could have given up on me due to my behavior problems. But nonetheless she persisted. She taught us in ways that led us to believe that we were not just sixth graders, but young adults maturing and eager for life's next steps.

I think back to those teachers who had such intensity that it was attributed as a sign of respect or a sign of some way of adding to their eccentricity.

Well, i've digressed immensely and i didn't even remember what I was supposed to journal about.

Now what was it?