My Dream Job. For Serious.

(I heartz LOLcats.)

I am a WINNER #nanowrimo #dfwrhinos

Last night, or rather this morning, at about half past the midnight hour, I validated my NaNoWriMo novel, SHOWMANCES: ALL'S FAIR IN LOVE AND THEATER. All 50,134 words of it.

Sadly, at around 49,000 words, I realized that was the point when my novel should have started.

And here I was, looking forward to a month of editing my 2004 NaNovel and reading books and the like, thinking I was done with SHOWMANCES for the time being.

Do I write out the rest of it, at least a slim skeleton of what the rest should be?

Do I put it aside, and finish edits and rewrites and newrites (it needs a lot of work) on the novel I was working on before November?

Do I try to do it all at once? (Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 2004 NaNo. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday: 2009 NaNo. Sunday: collapse?)

You know what would be cool?

If I didn't have a pesky day job, and could write full-time.

Health care, explained via World's Largest Hog analogy

Wouldn't the "right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," granted unalienably in the Declaration of Independence, by definition grant us a right to health care? Or am I just being silly and making sense? Can I pursue happiness if I'm suffering from preventable ailments? Can I exercise my right to life if I die from, say, an abscessed tooth due to lack of basic health care?

EDIT [because, apparently, my best inspiration always has to come in the shower]: This is the price we pay for living in a society. I will gladly pay for the idiots who eat the chocolate-covered bacon, if it means I'm also paying for the mother dying of breast cancer, or if it means a husband doesn't have to divorce his wife so his medical bills don't repossess their house and demolish their kids' college funds.

Bad dreams, high hopes, one minor(ity) teacher

I had a strange dream last night. I was back in the classroom, but don't ask me why.

You know how people (usually during their college years) have the dream where they show up for class and it turns out that day is exam day, and they haven't studied for the test at all? Well, in my dream (I guess since I am the teacher), I show up for class and it turns out it's exam day, and I don't have a final exam for the students.

(Don't worry, it all worked out. I remembered I had a flash drive in my purse with the exam I used last year, so I ran to a computer and printed that document up, even though that exam didn't necessarily align with whatever I may or may not have taught those students this year/semester.)

When I went into teaching, I had high expectations. I wanted to be better than the teachers I'd had (the reason I went in to teaching in the first place was because of my sixth-grade math teacher, who -- when I dared suggest there were two answers to the problem, hers and the one EVERY SINGLE STUDENT IN THE CLASS had gotten -- glared at me and seethed, "The teacher is ALWAYS right"; I had to show her that's not how teachers are supposed to act). I also wanted to be the kind of teacher you see in the movies, the Freedom Writers kind of teacher. The one person who was able to reach out to that student that no one else could... be that kind soul who speaks to that wayward student no one else could understand... all that crap.

Instead, I more often resembled that seething, "I AM ALWAYS RIGHT" teacher. When I have teaching dreams, I'm usually screaming at the students, out of control. That's when I'm not hurling desks and other items across the classroom.

Suffice it to say, I fell far short of my initial expectations.

From the beginning I was disappointed in myself, before I even started. My first job was at a high school in a very, very well-off neighborhood. I was teaching the uber-rich kids... a far cry from the cast of Dangerous Minds.

I felt like a sell-out. If I wanted to be a REAL teacher, shouldn't I have been working at an inner-city school (like the other girls who student-taught with me)?

When I took my last teaching job, at the over-50%-minority high school, I was hoping to be redeemed. Don't know why, since my meager classroom management skills barely cut it with the rich kids (two-[college-educated]-parent household, three-squares-meals-a-day, were read two since they were in the womb), how was I going to manage the lower-SES kids?

I guess I was hoping that my being "one of them", my being Hispanic, would be enough of a bond to make up for my lack of classroom management (or patience).

Obviously, I didn't cut it there, either. We won't get into all the gory details right now, since that's not the point of this post.

With this new job, I'm not in the classroom, but I'm still working with mostly minorities, lower-income students. The Dangerous Minds/Freedom Writers kids.

And I'm wondering if I'm going to be able to cut it this time. I don't think I can count on my "Hispanic" status to be an automatic bridge-builder.

I want to make it. I want to be Hillary Swank. I mean, if blonde little Michelle Pfeiffer could do it, can't I? At least on a part-time, after school?

I'm even going to end my boycott on inspirational-teacher entertainment and read The Freedom Writers Diary, as much salt as it will rub on my wounded pride. See if maybe I can learn a thing or two, before I start teaching these kids.

"Make sense, not death threats"

(I really should have posted this last week, or whenever the 40th anniversary of Woodstock was... but I still want to post it and use my clever title. Because I'm so proud of my clever title.)

I don't really have any words for this whole health care debacle. I don't even watch the news (gave that up a long time ago; there was no point since they've stopped worrying about that whole "providing information" thing), but I do click on links via Twitter and Facebook. Maybe I shouldn't, especially when those links lead to debates with racist Republican uncles (don't worry, I've blocked him. Smartest move I've made in a long time).

This video really made me want to pack up and move to a more civilized country (it's not the best quality video; you can read a transcript of the show instead, if you prefer).

EDIT: And, of course, who could forget Joe The Plumber? Of course he has something intelligent and elocuent to add to the debate! How can people stand behind a party whose prominent members are resorting to death threats instead of discussing the facts and issues, like rational, intelligent, sane people?

The few debates I have unfortunately engaged in leave me dumbfounded, because the people opposed to health care reform MAKE NO SENSE AT ALL. I don't understand the words coming out of their mouths. I understand the individual words, but the way these people string them together... I'm baffled.

I should know better than to expect logic and reason from right-wingnuts, but they are really outdoing themselves this time. Case in point?

Michelle Bachmann:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I mean, SERIOUSLY? How can you possibly not realize what you just said???

Are they from another planet? Am I?

There are teeny-tiny rays of hope in this whole thing, like MomRising.org's Healthcare Truth Squad: Everyday Heroes, Busting Myths, Spreading the Truth!

It would be nice of we could talk about the actual points of the bills. If we could deal with facts, without yelling, and without assault rifles. Is that too much to ask of a civilized nation?

Solution to the AIG Bonuses Problem

I say we pull a Brewster's Millions on these guys. They want their bonuses? Let them have them. But -- they have to spend the bonus within a week. And they can't own any new stuff at the end of that week. Same rules as in the movie, except these guys will be allowed to donate the money to a charity if they so choose.

Isn't that "trickle-down economics"? Give money to the rich, so they spend it and help the economy? Then make them spend it!!!

If they do not succeed in spending all the bonus money in a week, then they have to pay the 90% tax, on the full amount. If they don't want to take the Republican approach and "trickle it down," then we take the Democratic approach, and tax it. Everybody wins, really.

Wanna make it even better? Make a reality TV show out of it. People can track each exec's progress on the website each one will set up (and pay for). They can vote on ways for these guys to spend the money. or which charities should get the money. Really, my plan is brilliant.

Things I would do if I had unlimited time:

• take photos (enough to justify the purchase of the Nikon D90)
• oil paint
• volunteer at a children's hospital, reading books
• make prayer shawls
• market my freelance business
• get a Master's in French
• get a Master's in creative writing (probably the bilingual program offered by UTEP)
  
• get a PhD
• learn Italian
• learn German
• scrapbook
• yoga
• read all the books I own
• read all the books I want to read
• tap dance
• do theater shows
• karaoke
• hang out with my friends more
• write more