Loved what I DID, Owning what I'll DO

Who am I, as an employee?

A hard worker with open availability.
Presented with an opportunity to help others I am more than happy to help, taking on more hours or splitting my shifts or taking on close-opens or working when others find themselves personally (not professionally) unavailable. Sometimes I do this even at the expense of a timeline with personal projects on my own itinerary.

I am looking to learn, but I get frustrated when others have no passion to teach me.

Just the same, I’ve learned a lot. Maybe not as fast as I should, maybe not all that I should, maybe not in the expected timeline. But I’m willing to learn. I feel that to leave a student discouraged and isolated is not only unprofessional, but also demonstrates a severe personal flaw that one should seriously look at repairing.

I don’t talk about others behind their back.

I keep my judgments to myself. I do get discouraged when others can not pay the same courtesy. I may voice out concerns and comments in vague generalizations. This is not only to protect myself. I do this to protect others. I do not believe in sabotaging others in an effort to self serve, self gratify, or self promote. I certainly do not talk in a negative manner about others-- because they have different experience than I. They have different personal and professional resumes.

I feel professional development can be a joint effort. If I have the drive and I am struggling, professionally it is the obligation of others to help me identify the kink in my work. This will alleviate the likelihood of poor performance. Coincidentally this also promotes job satisfaction and success in general.

In fact, it might even provide job excellence. If everyone digs in to try. Really try.

I show up on time. And if I show up late I apologize, because my reliance on public transportation is a flaw. But certainly if it has become a problem I will begin to take an earlier bus and arrive at work half an hour ahead of schedule.

I show up in dress code, because my appearance is not only a representation of the company I work for, but it also represents my preparedness for work and answering questions to satisfaction, presenting myself as a leader in my company.

I show up ready to work. Things you will not hear from me.
I just don’t want to be here today. Because where else would you want to be today, a day in which you were scheduled to work?
I wish I were at home with my child/dog/husband/boyfriend/cat/crochet/WHATEVER. Because I feel that if your outside, personal commitments are so heavy that you cannot part from them during your scheduled time to work, to perform… perhaps you should not have accepted your position.

I don’t think I’m going to make it through my shift today. Because I feel if that is how you felt at least two hours before your shift, you should have notified you manager so other arrangements could have been made.

As an employee I feel that I am paid to not only behave but perform in a certain way. I will, when given guidance, do my absolute BEST to behave and perform at that level.

That said, I know that there is ABSOLUTELY an opportunity to ALWAYS IMPROVE.

I believe in DOING WHAT IS RIGHT. When offered a position I expect that I was promoted because I was a good fit, an ideal candidate, and that I have presented a disposition in which management believes that I am not only moldable but also a foundational component to the advancement of our company and its values.

I will do my best to educate myself so that I may tailor and emphasise the experience of my guest, giving them an opportunity to be WOW-ed and encouraged to return not only to my store, but to our company.

As an employee my primary drive is to work with others, so that we may share responsibility in have a WINNING attitude… TOGETHER we are absolutely designed to bring success not only to ourselves but to our brand.

I LOVE working. I OWN that work is not just a paycheck. I find more than monetary satisfaction in my job. I am certainly appreciative of my pay. However, my most motivational element is that my job provides development and opportunity. It is not in my objective to abandon this ship to find better pay, or “easier” work. Once I have accepted a position I will stay with this position and do my very best. Unless otherwise, professionally, notified I will continue to do said work.

What I am I NOT an ex-employee?

Angry. I’m not angry.

I am not going to trash talk my employer. When asked by those in my life, my personal realm, the details of my termination… I will absolutely be frank in regards to the way in which I was treated. Especially if that treatment plays a hand in my eventual termination. Especially if I can make note in which I was treated differently from others, or that my actions, when shared by others, did NOT result in termination for them. These sort of observations, I feel, are SIGNIFICANT notes to share with those in my personal life, as well as with human resources.

As an ex-employee I am absolutely interested in speaking to human resources.
I hope that these sort of observations are noted...in hopes that others are, professionally, not left to feel the same. Let alone, not left to find themselves as suddenly unemployed as I.

What I am, as an ex-employee?

So. Very. Surprised.

And hurt.

Professionally left without any means to provide for a personal life in which I felt I could afford given my position-- This is a lifestyle in which I only adopted because I felt I was given a promotion based on my performance and with the expectation that my team meant to support me in my continued success.

As it turns out… they were not interested in that success.

I find this detail… discouraging. Disheartening. Frustrating. So disappointing.

Ultimately, I find it unprofessional.

But I find myself to afraid to say these things… As if I am betraying those that I worked with.


What am I, as an ex-employee?

I feel that I was left in no other position… but to feel BETRAYED.

Thoughts that have been permeating in my head for a few days now. Sharing.

On David Bowie

A few people are hating on the Mourning David Bowie on social media. “You didn’t know him? How can you mourn someone you don’t know!” 

Ahem. David Bowie was never ONE person. And for some of us he was The One, the one that made us feel a musical love so deep, that we became a little at peace with ourselves, even if everything was all turmoil and broken world… there was a stillness and peace within because it had been said and it wasn’t all in our own heads. Someone else said it. So then it became real. 
I’m not crazy. I am not crazy. There’s something in the wavelengths of Heathen that makes me feel like I am not crazy. There’s something more than I’m Afraid of Americans. There’s something else rattling around… and I’m not crazy because I can hear it now. There’s more of it. For a few breathing moments, I’m not afraid. It just is. There is no undoing it. It is here. I’m aware. Now… what can I do about it. Now that I know I’m not crazy. 

Bowie was always himself. At any degree of evolution he could share that self. He was always himSELVES. And yeah, absolutely, he wasn’t actually “David Bowie” either. He was David Robert Jones. And David Robert Jones was himself too, with the people who loved him. 

David Bowie was himself for me, because I loved David Bowie. 

And a person on the planet that has enough courage to share selves, love on multiple levels, never let creativity tap out of the game… that man, that human, that existence…. it should be mourned. You can’t social media shame me because I mourn a man I didn’t know. 

He lives in my ears, traveled to my heart, admired Seu Jorge for transferring and translating vibrations that touched on new levels (I’m listening now)… I mourn that the world lost that vibration, that artistic energy, that honesty, a person that had the ability to heart clench your spaces that you thought were long forgotten, too afraid, too ignored to ever feel again. 

And suddenly, those spaces… drenched in living emotion. 

So. Yes. I mourn. 

On “Don’t be that guy.” 

Seriously. Don’t be. 

Did my best to take myself on a date, at my favorite brewery, just down the street. Took a Poets & Writers magazine with me, with every intention of sitting with a pint and reading, exploring, inspiring myself to get some more writing done. Even… *gasp* write enough to start submitting. Avi (and Jon too) when they speak to me occasionally ask, “Have you been writing? What have you been writing?” 
Because both of those gorgeous idiots know how badly I need to be writing and how gloriously different I am when I get to write. 

Anyway, I was going to give myself a basic start, to get back in the game. 

But then Drunk-o-McGee, sitting next to me, wants to start talking. Then gives the, “So you like poetry! I have a poem I like.” Then making you read a poem on their phone. And it was a good poem. I read John Milton and nodded, like a proper English Major should. “It’s a good favorite to have.” 

But then, don’t be that guy, that gets all fussy because I’m the kinda girl that gets poetry but doesn’t get all weepy at On His Deceased Wife. “Aren’t you sad?! It’s a wonderful poem!” 

Go home, dude, yer drunk! “Um. It’s just not my jam.” 

Martin Espada makes me weepy and chest thrusty. Sylvia Plath makes me I’m looking at you squinty cat eyed. Chaucer makes me horny. Carrie Murphy makes me happy and feministy. Walt Whitman makes me throb. Aaron McCollough makes me feel breath. Anne Waldman makes me feel very zen but also with a kick of angst. Richard Greenfield makes me feel smarmy. And A. Van Jordan makes me feel brainy. 

Your pick up an English Major in a brewery poet is going to be John fucking Milton? 
Fuck off. Don’t be that God damn guy. At least try to feed me some Pablo Neruda or something. You want to flirt me with me? GIVE ME SOMETHING TO FUCKING EAT. 

No, thank you, I do NOT want you to buy me a fucking drink. I’m going home. 

On wearing emotions. 

Do your best to not wear your emotions. People around you will get very distracted and read a version of yourself that is a fiction. This will make your reality very… very… very complicated. Tiring. Lonely. 

And honestly, it would be ideal if people weren’t so brain scattered that they think they have understanding of you on lock, just because they read your emotions. Because you’re a lot more than the emotions that have over powered you. 

So much more. But the more you try to “correct” them, the more they think you’re being “defensive” or “combative.” 

They’ve read what they read. No going back. 

Just breathe. 

Drink your beer and breathe, babe.

Safer.

Sometimes people do things to damage their own reality.

And then they ask you to participate in living in *their* reality. The one they have built with their mistakes.
It doesn’t make you unforgiving or hurtful for telling them, “No. I do not want to live there.”
But it is hurtful of them to ASK for you to live there.

Especially when you take special care to try to help them move back into a shared reality.
When you tell them it is forgiven… but they are, stuck in their faux reality, unable to forgive themselves. They are so angry. The anger fills them up to capacity and they begin to serve it up to you. EXPECT you to happily accept that serving and eat it up.

But what they have offered… it is venom. If you accept it you will find yourself catatonicaly lost in *their* reality. You will find yourself apologizing for the wrongs you have done that are a pure fabrication. A history from a reality that you never lived.

Hey. Maybe I’ve been binge watching too much Fringe.

Or maybe… I have been quietly working on removing the venom.

It was both.

A lot of hurtful things are being said. I know I have said some pretty hurtful things in private. I have been my own type of angry these days. So angry that I’ve asked-- What did I do in a past life, that I must deserve this? What did I do to piss God off this much? How can they be this cruel, careless, mean, manipulative… stupid? I am so angry. And hurt. I have been self enclosing most of this anger. There is one person that is catching the brunt of this frustration. It’s not his job. He doesn’t love me. If I keep this up, he may never will.

In truth, I think, even if none of this ever happened… he wouldn’t have loved me anyway. I do not believe he ever will. I don’t know if that is self-inflicted doubt or the truth. I have my own realities to suss out. I’m not inviting anyone into my reality. I wish others would do the same.

The most hurtful thing being said?

I will never make my mother a grandmother.

That lashed out insult, shared in public, keeps swimming in my head.

I am currently waving an “I am never having children” flag. It is a new flag, that does not belong in my hands.

My high school sweetheart and I talked about kids. In a passive, unreal sort of dimension. It was a “someday” hypothesis. Our first daughter would be named Valkyrie. Our first son-- William, for William Gibson. We had our own set of priorities. In the end, our eventual pregnancy was very poorly timed. We were too young. Too far apart. Too unprepared. In an aftermath we spent years trying to make our teenage love Grow Up. It never did. When it was over… we appreciated that there were no casualties.

I had other pregnancies after that. One with a young man that was already struggling to see his first and only daughter with more frequency. I was not one to make things worse for him. One with a man… we had a great chemistry… and he fed that classic line, “It’s not a good time now. We can do this later.” Years later I am told he is married with a family and for a while I resented that quite a bit. Eventually I learned to be happy for him. Because he did have great… lot of things. And I’m glad someone finally figured how to work with that.

I perhaps scared away a Great Love by running my mouth about a commitment timeline that he hadn’t even started to think about. “When we have kids….” is the sort of statement that you should only make when your other is prepared.

And there was the humiliating Jeremiah and his drunken, violent breath in my neck. “I’m going to put a baby in you.”

Oh God. Anything but that.

And that’s when… I started to think. I don’t want children. I can’t trust a person to not screw it up. I can’t trust myself to not screw it up.

I watched as others started to screw it up. It is pretty easy to screw it up.
Screw your kids up.
Place your reality over theirs and make them eat it. Make them live in it.
Sometimes children are forced into living in a reality. And the adults are so drawn up in their world that they forget… it is CHANGEABLE.

Me asking for change is an abomination. It makes me A Total CUNT.

No. I can’t have kids. What if I screw it up? Worse. If I have kids their lives will be in a shared world, shared reality. They will live in a better place. And it will make them a target for the venom that I have been sussing out of my system. My children would be in the vipers path.

That isn’t fair to my Littles. The Littles in my life. The Littles I could have had.

It isn’t fair to me. But I am an adult. Fair is a fragment. The definition is shiftable. It is not fair that I have been made so uncomfortable that I no longer want something I always wanted. But it isn’t a matter of failed justice. It’s my reality to live. I’m not hurting anyone with this reality. And the greatest thing about saying, “I’m never having children.” is that I never have to invite anyone into that reality. Not having children is a single occupancy reality. And eventually, I feel I will settle into it quite well. I have to.

I’m not the kind of girl. No one has an urgency to be with me. Certainly no urgency to have more of something similar around.

For 20 years I have been fed a venom that has me pretty convinced… there is something wrong with me. I don't deserve to be happy. If I am happy it is because I am a heartless cunt that never helped anyone. If I am happy it must be at the cost of someone else. Twenty years of that abuse... and I'm convinced.

Also...In the historic timeline of my lovelife, they have all discovered there is nothing special about me.

I am with someone that finds nothing special about me. On his end our relationship is calm and polite. If it weren’t for my damn bucking about it would be perfectly mundane. Or maybe just perfect. I don’t know.

I can’t stop bucking.

And I should. I’m nothing special.

It is down right Zen.

And it’s safer this way.

Marvel Mic Drop

How is "Taylor Swift's 'Bad Blood' Video Is the Anti-Avengers"?

Listen, I enjoy Taylor swift, just about a bunch of truck tons. Now. She's adorable. But also, she has become strong in her Feminist Flag waving without looking TOO adorable. She has become an educated Feminist. One that has chosen to fight on a side that, ironically, is still struggling through the growing pains of being born after Second Wave Feminism. Honestly, I think we'll be on a fifth wave of feminism before we get all of that... BAD BLOOD (ahem, had to be done) resolved and/or buried.

Current Feminism is the lonely, confused Brand New Baby... meanwhile Second Wave is the petulant middle child still grumbling about arguments that really ought to be long forgotten so the family can move onto more pressing matters. Like the new family member (my generation, and the one coming up) in Feminism that is confusedly content to say, "I WOULDN'T CALL MYSELF A FEMINIST." Or, "No, I love men. I can't be a feminist." Or, "Oh...I think we're all equal now."

Sure, kid, if I were born into the family with a petulant middle child like Second Wave I would do my very best to let EVERYONE know that I'm NOT like the fitting and fussy sister that has actually given our family a intensely undeserved reputation. Good job Taylor. For having fun with your reclamation. Feminist. If we can get a few more baby birds to launch like that... The family Feminist might actually survive.

But that said-- are we still going on about Nat in The Avengers? Are Femi-brats still haranguing Joss about his choices as a writer?

The Black Widow does NOT get the Feminist Friendly/Buffy Summers Whedonverse Edit.
Nat is a Faith. She's all torn up and damaged, has made some decisions that in retrospect... has left blood in her ledger. She's a spy and she's broken her conditioning which means her life is pretty much helter skelter. Joining the Avengers is her balance in her bast. Not a place for any Famibrat to go about, without consent, penetrating what it is that Natasha Romanoff, as a character, "needs." A conditioned spy stays conditioned. Stays oblivious to emotion. Orders are followed. Commands are obeyed. Without conditioning Nat gets to... think about love. And miserably children.

Pro-choice card! Her CHOICE was taken away. It wasn't important at the time (because conditioning) but now that her brain is her own... it's something she can only think about. How can you, as a feminist, argue that her sterilization is anti-feminist? Shouldn't we champion and educate that compulsory sterilization still happens on this planet. To people that aren't spys! THAT SUCKS. Did YOU know that? Let's talk about that.

As a feminist I get to say, "I don't want children." And people are super sad hat for me. "You'll change your mind! Children are the best. Everyone needs to have one!!!" Pro-choice card, again, you're right, I might eventually decide that I do want children and Femibrats will get sad hat about that. You can't win.

Neither can Nat. And neither can Joss. He used Nat's spy instigated sterilization the same way in which Tracy Bond had to die to build a better 007. So yeah, women get the writing shake down of some pretty terrible stuff. Feminist card... men too! The writing manipulation happens, it just happens on a different frequency.

I've had abortions. Bad timing. But if I found out that I could no longer have children. That I no longer had the choice to change my mind? I... would... be... DEVASTATED. Nat's devastation isn't anti-feminist. It's pro-humanist.

Do you even Marvel, bruh?

And yea, Nat has Smurfette Syndrome... but what exactly is Joss supposed to do about that? There isn't an abundance of female, Marvel Heavy Hitters in the Avengers. The roll call for the Avengers is long and full... but not a lot of movie worthy characters to be had.
After the third time is a charm luck with The Hulk, Marvel can't roll our with She-Hulk. Too much Hulk. Smash. Same could be said about Spiderwoman. Sue Storm (v. 1, Jessica Alba I love you, but Sue Storm, you were not!) is getting a reboot (fingers crossed!!!) Can't roll out Wasp because Ant-man.

We did get Scarlet Witch. And she was dark and twisty too. Her brother had to see her on a razor edge of chaos to become the hero and she had to loose her hero brother to get off the razor and become a hero herself.

That's fucking good writing. Joss and his team did in a few scenes what took Marvel comics... as long as it's always taken them... issues... months... alternate universes... arcs... years.

Femibrats... um... "girls" have been excluded from the Boys Comic Book Club for decades. Could you not fit and fuss about it in a way in which it makes it harder for me and other women, our daughters and nieces, our friends to break the glass ceiling in our local comic shops? We have some serious footing right now and we're gonna get there. But we can't climb if you, by pushing, are try to "help." You're not helping.

Buffy Summers had an abortion, y'all.  If we can champion her choice, if Joss can set his balls on the block to give her that choice... then we can champion the softer side of Natasha, her want for children and Joss' recognition that Nat now wants more and can't have it. As of today, that's a #feminist struggle that we're still fighting for.

#avengersasemble

Just paid the deposit on Yoga Certification course at downtown desert yoga.

I've come up with a lot of ideas on what it is that I want to Be When I Grow up as Brain Boggled New Naomi. Some ideas washed out because I'm not the student/degree carrying person that I used to be. I tried at getting my Grant Writing Certification. On line course work was manageable once we were running the basics. But when fine-tuning details started, when I had a question and replies didn't come until a few days later, when personal family tragedy became too distracting... I washed out. I've learned how to forgive myself. I learned enough to set my own course on grant writing.  

Working to be mindful around the onslaught of anger that came with the discovery that I have changed as a student, that I need more attention... took some time... is still taking some time. I'm not going to say that I will, out of the gate, begin teaching yoga. I won't be playing that card. Refining my knowledge in this field is for me. To help me suss out the stuff that's still left undone.   Eventually, of course, I would like to teach yoga, very specifically to those with Traumatic Brain Injuries. Many yoga studios and instructors are doing fantastic work on helping our Veterans deal with their PTSD and TBI. I admire that.

But I also feel voiceless. Because my TBI is not attached to something socially/politically tangible... I feel a little left out. I kinda need yoga guidance too! It isn't often you see a class directed for those who have TBI. Just TBI. TBI and PTSD are often taglined-- TBI and PTSD associated with SERVICE. I'm just some kid, that was walking down the street and got smacked by a car. I'm not special. My TBI isn't special. "You look fine." Oh yeah, because my recovery is totally visible! The Invisible Injury stays Invisible sometimes. I am appreciative that service men and women with TBI are no longer AS Invisible (there is still a lot of work to do!) They served our country, served its citizens, served us and they should never be invisible.  

My injury is still invisible.

And let's be honest there truly is enough Feeling Left Out/Invisibility charged into TBI life. Yoga has become important to me because much of its benefits can dismiss that sensation. It's hard to feel left out when it's only you on that mat. It can be terrifying at first.

It is just you on this mat. You're not sure if you're doing this right. You're looking around, breath irregular, looking to see if your body is positioned like all the other people in the room, like the person on the video, like the book illustration says. Is this even working? Does this even matter? I'm wasting my time? Maybe I should be... anywhere but here. Maybe I should get up, get off this mat, and get back to bed, have another coffee, check my Facebook.   

But, babe, it is just YOU on this mat. And sometimes, breakthrough. In the form of an instructor witnessing your struggle and sitting next to you, assuring you that you are doing this right, that no you don't look like the person next to you, that you're a little new and eventually you're body will shape and bend in only the way your own body can and there isn't a rush to fold yourself in half and it's totally ok because not everyone can do that but in trying you find your platform of what you CAN do and what feels right. In the form of you watching that video and realizing that tension, in fact, is releasing from your calves and while you don't look like the person in the video you actually are starting to feel pretty good, right there in your bound up calves. In the form of looking at that book and reading the caption under the yoga position, Vrksasana, whatever that means, Tree Pose, oh... this is silly... oh, I can just start off with my foot above my ankle... oh, well that's ok, I can do that... and then eventually discovering that you can trust yourself to stand on one leg, with your arms over your head even with your eyes closed and NOT fall down.   

Because it is just YOU on this mat. No one can tell you what to do. No one can make you feel left out. Because it's just you. And for a little while it feels good to be just you.   

If you are brain boggled, or has a replaced hip, or a bruised tail bone, or ringing ears, or a big stupid headache that won't go away... if you is skinny, or old, or wide, or young... if you isn't worried bout that jelly roll at your belly, or if you has a day in which you ARE worried... it's your day, your mat and it's just you for twenty minutes, and hour, fell asleep in Corpse Pose, maybe two hours.   It stops being terrifying to be alone. You learn to step off that mat and feel less alone. Even when people are trying to leave you out... you're kinda just a two minute tree pose away from being Alone on your mat and ok with that because being Alone and Lonliness are two entirely different things.   

I have invisibility days. You know what I do with those? Banana or Crescent Moon Pose. When my sides are splitting with electric stretch it doesn't matter if no one else can see me. I can see myself.   

So, the immediate direction is not to become a teacher but to first teach myself and in that learn to share with others. I can't help anyone until I get Me done first.

Passover is very hard for me.   I can do Yom Kippur on my own. Purim I miss and would rather not live without it, but I can. My family and friends easily transitioned into celebrating Rosh Hashanah (my favorite), Hannukah (fried food for the win), and Tu B'Shevat (who doesn't love trees?). Sukkot is typically around the same time that the Masons celebrate the Feast of Tishri so my father and mother run to me for recipes and item symbolism.  

But Passover... is lonely. And it wasn't always so. 

My first year in New Orleans I was "adopted" to come to a Seder. Completely out of my element, I still managed. Second year... adopted again, by the Marxes. And it started to make more sense. How important family is for Passover.  

And it isn't that I don't have family. Last year my family sat with me for a 30 minute Seder and that was good. They got it. But they didn't Get It. Because I am here tonight, alone.   Last year Avi and I had been dating only a few months. So I was a little unreasonably hurt that I wasn't invited to his house. We've dated a year and I'm sure that is he weren't working a 12 hour shift at the hospital for his preceptorship I am sure I would have been welcome to join him and his family. 

I could have asked the Rabbi here in Las Cruces if there was anyone that would like to take me in. I'm sure that someone would have. Um.... but... the transition into this community... didn't work as well as I would have liked. In Nola I was only asked to Live Jewishly for my "conversion." In Las Cruces I was invited to take a class and write reports. It didn't fit. It didn't fit into my life the way it was supposed to.   

It broke my heart. I am currently still acting out this defiant, "What do I have to PROVE?!"because that is how it translated in my head and in my heart--that I had to prove that I was worthy of any Invitation into this community. Some days I am still so furious. Most days I understand, it was never meant to be translated the way that I perceived it.  

I am so alone.   It is the WORST time of the year to feel alone. I kinda feel like Passover is THE holiday in which... we... WE... are kinda all in. Where the exclusion and suffering and brokenness that can seep into so many aspects of our lives, work and family alike.... This is when we collectively act to honor those struggles.   

This is where we can ALL say, "I went through that too. I'm going through that too. But we're going to get out of this. We're out of that now and we're moving on."   But right now I feel like I'm the only one in this. And I'm in it alone.   But the sun is going down.   I have candles and wine and matzo to bless. I can't walk myself through items of a Seder plate. Also... I don't OWN a Seder plate. I kept meaning to buy one because this one website took a note that I had made and added transliteration to the plate. Maybe I will buy that tonight. 

For next year? I'd like to not be this alone again "next year."  

Next Year in Jerusalem. L'Shana Ha'ba-ah B'yerushalayim. 

Frustration

I will tell the story of why I wanted to be an High School English teacher until the cows come home.   When my family moved to Silver City, as a freshman I lost my class room credits in High School level Algebra (which I took in eighth grade) as well as my advanced placement in English and was given no credit for the two years of Spanish that I had already taken. My standing in the National Honor Society was removed because I was a National Honor Society Student from Texas? I don't know, it still doesn't make sense.   I was placed in Algebra 1 with a teacher who did not recognize I needed more than the basics. I checked out. I stopped going. I smoked pot in the ditch behind the high school. I failed the class I'd already had credit for. Twice. I stopped being good at math. A shame, because I had been good at it. I distinctly remember feeling the thrill of Tetris-ing numbers, arranging them, calculating, making them FIT. Making numbers speak to each other in a way in which they could come to a resolve. A resolution. An absolute.  

Math used to speak to me in its own poetry.   And when faced with me and my poetic math... the instructors tossed me aside, asking only that I learn like everyone else.   

I had one exceptional English teacher. Who blinking quizzically and I think a little surprised nodded in understanding when I had informed her that, "I'd already read that book." At 12 I'd already read Animal Farm, thank you very much. And for perhaps maybe a week I sat in my desk, rolling my eyes at my classmates...they were fumbling towards "getting" it, only parroting a generic answer and always answering with a faint question mark as if they did not trust their judgment, their understanding, their own mind.   My flustered frustration could not be remedied because the instructor had an entire class room full of students who needed her attention. I did not need her attention. I needed her respect and she gave it to me. I was given other books. I was allowed to sit in the hallway and read.  

The next year... ha... another English Teacher docked my first paper a FULL LETTER GRADE... wait for it... because I was, "Using vocabulary outside high school level" and it was assumed that I was some how... stealing the work, not doing my own work, something.   It never occurred to the instructor that a 13 year old student in love with language would like to elevate her speech by, I don't know, USING A THESURAUS.   I had to stop. I struggled. I raged. I fought a good fight. And then... I gave up.   I watch what it happening to my little brother. To students in our nation. And my heart breaks. The struggles I faced with my teachers not tailoring my education to fit my needs has multiplied. Our students now face a significantly larger problem. 

Universal Teach to Test.  

I knew nothing about the PARCC. 

 I thought it was like the TASS. A two day event every few years that judged whether I deserved to be in a different class room setting. Like, for instance, I was already great at reading and writing so I no longer had to take English. I was given the chance to move on to another language. I did well in math so I was allowed to move on and start working on High School level credits. Other students needed more assistance in subjects. As an "advanced" student I was given a class to explore, use a computer and assist teachers in the class room focusing an little ones that needed a nudge in reading and comprehension.   

I was build to learn. And eventually I built myself to teach. I wanted, passionately wanted, to reach students. To nudge them into accepting their problem subjects in a way that would make it fit in their lives. Yes, sometimes, a subject has to be Tetris-ed into the right space. It can fit if someone helps you figure it out. And sometimes if you don't get help the entire system will crash down, nothing will fit, you'll panic and put anything anywhere and sometimes sooner rather than later you will FAIL. GAME OVER. And the discouraged sense of failure can not often be bucked and shrugged away. Sad and frustrated you do not start over. You walk away.   The PARCC... does not allow teachers to help individual students figure out how to make the pieces fit.  There isn't enough time. There isn't enough space. There is already too much on the universal Teach to Test schedule.  

If your student doesn't 

 get it  

the way they are supposed to get it 

in the time they are supposed to get it  

The test will tell you they didn't get it. And then the school asks the teachers why they didn't get it. The money source tells the school that because not enough students got it... funding will dwindle.  

No Child Left Behind? HA. HAHA!   What about EVERY CHILD IS DIFFERENT. And some children need to learn with tailored finesse.  

The PARCC is not a two day test. It goes on for weeks.   If a student does not participate and pass in the PARCC... they will not be issued their diploma. They will be issued something else. Whether that something else will hold the same standing when applying to college is still something I am trying to figure out.  

My little brother wants to be an Engineer. He must participate in this generic, cookie cutter education. He must suffer through this before he can bust out and BUILD.  

But I think... children should be building their own futures. When left to their own devices children have the capacity to build things we never knew could exist. They absolutely surprise and astound. And when they struggle the good teacher, the creative teacher, can help them figure it out when given time and space. Sometimes it takes a few tries. But Let it Go, kid. You'll get it.   The PARCC test compromises our students, our teachers and our future.  

It compromises THEIR futures.