Motivation...

Of all the things that I've been thinking of lately one of the things that has been most prominent has been my motivation. What is it, where does it come from, what is it pushing me to? Do I even have the right type of motivation to get me to where I want to be?

So for those of you who don't know, here is my goal:
I want to work with kids, teenagers to be specific. But not just your typical everyday teenager. I want the ones with problems, and not the 'I'm not popular, I don't get what I want' type problems. I want the real bad ones, the ones no one else wants, the ones who everyone else has given up on. Those are the ones I want to focus on, those are the ones that I want to help and encourage and bring to a better place in their life. I believe that adolescence is the only other time in a person's life (besides original basic development) that you can have a deep impact and change a "troubled kid" for the better.

So motivation. Here we go:
I remember being younger, maybe 8 or 9, and seeing the movie Renaissance Man with Danny DeVito. I loved the movie, but it wasn't until I was older and in high school that I finally realized why. DeVito's character is supposed to be teaching a small group of army soldiers how to comprehend. Instead he ends up reading Hamlet with them and explaining it all to them. However, before we get to that part, he tells them to write an essay about why they have joined the army and these kids come back with some of the saddest stories I had heard until that point. One talks about how his kid sister was killed, another how she never really had a home. DeVito's character during the course of the movie reaches them in a way that I want to be able to reach kids. He changes their lives, shows them that there's more to life than what other people tell them.
Two summers ago I interned at a group home for teenagers in the court system. I was assigned to one of the girl's houses and I became quite close to them. Their stories were awful, but I will never forget Jenna. Her parents didn't want her. It's as simple as that. Her parents just didn't want her and so she became a problem child in school - getting into fights, smoking on school grounds, stealing, cheating, etc. Finally a foster family decided that they wanted to adopt her. At the same time that this decision was made, it was found out that two of the main caretakers in the house, whom she had actually grown close to, were leaving. This hit her hard and so she began acting out. Because of that, the foster family decided a week before adoption that they couldn't handle her and didn't want to adopt her. I cried that night. I still remember her running into the house, and into her room, slamming the door. I was sent in after her as the main caretakers talked to the foster parents. She wasn't crying, she never cried in front of people. I sat on her bed and just waited until she decided it was time to talk, and when she did she finally cried. She was hurt so badly. No one wanted her and she didn't know what to do or how to be in order for someone to love her. It broke my heart to pieces, and still does even today. I think about her often and I send up a plea to St. Jude to take care of her. I hope she hasn't ended up in jail or worse.
I watched Dead Poet's Society and was so inspired by Robin Williams character and the way he impacted the lives of those boys. How he inspired them to pursue their dreams and own ambitions. "Oh Captain, my captain." He showed them the world was more than what their parents said or that the school let them see.
Nebraska passed their safe haven laws to include kids all the way up to 17. In the first few weeks, of the 10 kids that were dropped off at hospitals, only 1 of them was a toddler. It breaks my heart when I think of that. Teenagers remember that, and don't know how to deal with it, and so turn to peers who don't know how to handle problems like that any better. Foster parents get burned out and many a time people just don't know how to handle these types of things.
Bang Bang You're Dead, another movie where the only person who really cares about the "kid at risk" is one teacher. That teacher says "when you label a kid at risk, you've just created a kid at risk" "why don't you decide who you are before someone else does" and other such inspiring quotes. You listen to what Travis Adams says in the videos he creates in the movie and you hear a teenager crying out for someone to help, to listen, and do show that they actually truly care. But one person is not enough. Teenagers need a support system in order to function in today's society and they aren't going to get it solely through the school. They need more.

So there it is. My motivation. I believe in the achievements of all teenagers, regardless of their past history. They just need a little encouragement, a little love, a little guidance. Someone who actually cares about what happens to them (and when I say actually, I mean a real, solid, true caring).

It's hard. Keeping my motivation in mind is hard what with everything else that is going on in my life. And then I'll lay down at night and these things will flood into my mind and I'll get lost thinking about what I should be doing differently, what am I not doing that I should be doing. I think about the what ifs. What if it's not good enough? What if I can't get the right training? What if I can't do it, what if I'm not strong enough to handle these kids? What if I never make it? What if this isn't what I'm suppose to do despite my obvious want to do this?

And then I think of Jenna. And of the stories of the other kids at the group home and I get up the next morning and go to the class I hate, and I come home and I do homework and I study for hours on end. So maybe my motivation is working, but I'm just getting tired of the seemingly endless setbacks from schools and my own professors.

Growing up...

A few of my friends will be getting married in the next four or five months. One in April, three in June, and another in August. A lot of other people I know have gotten engaged or will be getting engaged soon.

*Cue Queen's 'Another One Bites The Dust'*

People I graduated high school with have children, people I went to college with have children or are planning to have children. And here I am, excited about going to Centenary in the fall and graduating to start my masters program.

Is this a part of being 23? The people I mentioned above are no more than a year or so older than me, and some are a year or so younger. Am I suppose to be in the same spot? Looking to get married and start a family despite my goals and dreams of career achievement? Am I suppose to be putting those goals and dreams aside for something that traditional society says I'm suppose to be doing? Because I can't.

Here is my announcement to all that read here: You don't have to get married while in college or just out of college! You can in fact experience the world, learn to support yourself, find out who you are before you get married. That's not what life is all about. It is okay to be older, and more mature before you get married and settled down.

I just wish someone else would recognize that.

Spring Break 2009

Ok, so Connie came in a week ago yesterday to spend spring break up here and I have to tell you - it was the best spring break that I have had since starting college. I didn't go anywhere far, I didn't spend a lot of money, I didn't do anything overly special in fact I worked two days out of the week. But I had a blast just hanging out.

Saturday when Connie got here, Mike, me, Des, Jim and Kate all went out to a brewery and hung out. The place was packed, and the music was way to loud but it was fun all the same. Monday night I had to work, Tuesday was St. Patty's Day and we spent the night in drinking and watching Boondock Saints (oh I want Murphy sooo bad lol! and an epic failure on the appriopriate response of 'is it dead?'). Wednesday night we hung out with Mike and Des at bowling, Thursday I had to work for two hours, but then Connie, Katie, Cory and I all went and saw Watchmen (which makes a lot more sense the second time through).

Friday, Connie and I went into the city to the Museum of Natural History, Central Park, Intrepid Museum and Battery Park to get a pic with the Statue in the background. We really didn't spend as much money as I thought we were going to, considering we spent an hour and a half walking around Central Park getting lost! And then the train ride back was a nightmare but full of great moments that I wish I could fully explain to everyone (like my little mini spasm). Saturday we could barely walk, but Mom managed to get us out of the house and walk around, and then Sunday (today) Connie left for home (and again with train fiascos).

So it wasn't really an eventful week, but I had a blast. I got to hang out with Connie who is a great friend, Katie who is also a great friend, and Mike who is an awesome boyfriend. I think I needed to get away for a few years, and be on my own for a bit before I realized how much Jersey is really my home. How much I'm really and truly meant to be here. Yes I'm glad I went out and experienced Kansas, I will always cherish my memories and friends from there. But there's something special about Jersey. This week proved that. It was the best Spring Break I have ever had and all I had to do was stay here.

I guess I'm just a Jersey girl to the bone. This is where I belong, this is who I am.

Piss off...

So here's the low down with the job...

Tuesday I go in and I have three people inform me that another guard, who is 18 and unexperienced with no where's near my qualifications or certifications, got offered the head guard job. Sorry, Charlie, that's a no fly zone. So after getting very pissed off, I handed in my two week notice. Yep, I quit. So I go in tonight and I'm sitting there and I'm told that basically, them offering me or me being the head guard was a joke that they were pulling on me and that it was never going to happen. Well, this other guard said that once she heard that she denied the job and is looking for another one. But, inversely, I have been called a joke. Everything that I have done for them in the past couple months, and everything that I have worked so hard for, is a joke.

Now this is just the top of the iceberg, there is so much more crap going on with that building and their employees that it would take years to explain it all. (But most of it I've probably already written about.) The end of this story is that I left without telling my boss that I was leaving.

And it took him an hour to realize I was gone.

So he texts me asking why I left, and I sent back a message saying "well if I'm such a joke, I probably shouldn't be on deck. Plus I refuse to accept harrassment from an 18 year old boy." His response? "What joke? What are you talking about?" Um, where are the priorities??

So now that I'm not there, my employer is freaking out and asking me questions and crap. The bottom line is that I've done more for them then they have ever paid me for. And I'm not going to work some place that doesn't respect me. "Rumor"? Yeah right, I can't believe a word that comes from their mouths because I know its all in their best interest and no one else's.

Their pool is unsafe for any number of reasons (take your pic), they don't know what they're doing and once I'm gone for good their just going to be screwed into the ground. End of story. They're loosing too many employees to be successful and those that remain are manipulated and played for everything they're worth.

So to Gold's Gym - PISS OFF!

At work...

I'm sitting at work, the one place I don't really like to be, where no one really likes to be, mainly because I feel bad leaving Mike alone here. And Cory and Mike and I are all talking. I'll try to update later, but now, I'm gonna be here for a bit then head home and do homework and clean my room.

The whole de-dollifying is going slowly and I have a basket of porcelin dolls sitting in the middle of my room. Yeah...

K... later.

Tired...

This weekend was great, but consequently I am extremely tired. I'm sitting at work this morning, and thank God no one was in the water because I definately feel asleep in the guard chair. For not long, but long enough that I was starting to fall towards the water, until that is, Sully was kind enough to come out of the locker room and yell 'Hey Ryan!' and wake me up.

But I don't think I would have done this weekend any differently. I got to spend a night with Mike just talking and watching tv and occasionally kissing... and then spend the next day with him and his sister and her husband and a couple friends celebrating a very well done Wintereenmas. Then I had to get up at 6:00 to be at work at 7:00 which kinda sucked.

I did get a phone call from a friend of mine and we had the type of discussion I wish I had recorded and just totally posted some place online for all to hear. We discussed relationships and the course that different relationships tend to take and what a person should do if they find themselves in those situations. What we came down to, as I saw it, is that we need to stop stressing about relationships and this concept love and just let it happen naturally as it may. We're all still young, I'm 23, not 40. If I start getting closer to 40 and I'm still single and being stupid, then I'll re-evaluate some things. Until then, I'm happy where I am, just going a day at a time and not stressing. People who stress and pressure themselves or others about relationships are stupid. There is no right or wrong, there just is and that's what we have to go with.

Becoming asianist? Heighthist?

I think I'm becoming racist.

Or I just don't like people in general. But I'll let you decide.

I work at a gym, the pool part of they gym to be specific and I've really started hating people. Particularly asian people (with the exception of one guy who is really nice). It seems like they just cause trouble. It all started when that woman took a guy's goggles and they ended up in a yelling match over it. She was asian. Then there's the woman who can't seem to find a bathing suit that doesn't show her nipples (also asian). Or the woman we termed Godzilla's mother (asian), Green Penis man (asian), the guy who has the kid who can't swim, the kid that throws the ball at his grandmother repeatedly (all asain). Oh, my favorite, the guy who hangs his bag over the ring bouy even after we've told him he can't do it. And guess what, he's also asian.

Mike also hates asian people, and I can't say I blame him. He's upstairs and it seems like it's always the asian people who cause the most trouble for him. The woman who asks a question then tells him he's wrong, or the one who barks orders at him like he's a dog, the ones that ask him to change the channel, but won't tell him what channel to change it to, the ones that don't use the equipment right and then tell other people how to use it wrong as well. Yep, all asian. I really think I'm becoming... asianist?

But then there's The Void. I'm not sure what ethnicity this guy is but he is blacker than black and he's not a black man. He's stupid. He has a little girl who is just as black and can't swim and he claims that she can and I want to drown them both. I hate them.

Then there's the fat people. I'm telling you now, if you're significantly overweight, hairy, bulge-y, or just generally gross and disgusting, don't wear a speedo or a bikini! And they're mean! They argue with you about getting out of the pool, they dive into the water and then don't understand why they get yelled at. It's fricken 4-5.5 feet of water! I hate fat people. Does that make me fatist? Or facist?

Then I really can't stand guys who are shorter than me that insist on thinking they stand a chance at flirting with me. There's this one guy and no matter when he sees me he has this undying urge to wink at me. I have him by about 6 inches. Then there's the teenage boys that walk on deck and about ten minutes later I see them up in the window to the workout floor staring down at me, smiling and waving and I want to shoot myself. Or if I'm up working out, the short guy has to take the machine next to me and try to flirt with me. Now usually I don't care. But recent events have had me considering aspects of my past. Particularly my dating past, and I've decided something. Now that I'm actually dating someone who is taller than me, I will never again date someone my height. It's not going to happen, ever, ever again.

Heighthist. That is the determination.

I really think I just hate people. And I'm okay with that.

Backhanded bitch slapped...

A few of my friends have heard this already, but I want to make one thing clear: The next person to make a fricken comment about Ryan being my husband is going to clearly get backhanded bitch slapped across the face.

I go to make an appointment with my pt for next week and there's some fat new woman at the desk. So I hand her my perscription from the doctor and she looks up my file on the computer. She looks up my file! She's staring at it. Looks at the first name, looks at me and in all seriousness says "oh, so you're making appointments for your husband."

Do I fucking look like I'm married?! And even if I was married, the dude can get up off his own ass and make his own fucking appointment. Sorry, Charlie... not in my job description! For God's sake look at my hand... Do you see a ring there? NO! Get a fricken clue people!

Yes, I have a stereotypically male name, I've come to terms with that. But people need to stop making assumptions that I'm married just based on a fricken name!

Why do I have be married? I'm 23 years old, why the hell do I have to be married? Why is that the stereotype? Isn't it plausible in this day and age to be female, 23, and still in school and not married? Isn't it plausible that I'm independent and can think for myself without the help of a man, who only has enough blood in his body to run one head at a time? I'm not in middle America, I'm not in the bible belt, and I'm not in a time period where I would have to be married by 16 or otherwise considered an old maid. Get with it people!

This is the 21st century! Women are independent, we can vote, we can run for office, we have gotten past Sufferage and now have a place to stand in society. So why are we recessing? Why does every woman have to be married with children in order to be considered truly successful? Why must we work our bodies to the bone to achieve some distorted, screwed up vision of the American Dream? Stand up women! Go out on your own, publish your own work under your own name! Put your own name up in lights, not the name of some man because you seem to think that you can't be good without him! Achieve your dreams of greatness and independence!

Truth...

"Truth like a blanket that always leaves your feet cold. You push it. You stretch it, it'll never be enough. You kick at it, beat it, it'll never cover any of us. From the moment we enter crying to the moment we leave dying, it'll cover just your face as you wail and cry and scream."
-Todd Anderson, DPS

First of all, Dead Poets Society is my all time favorite movie. It's what inspired me to want to work with teenagers. So last night I watched it with my best friend, which I love because she's someone I can actually discuss the movie with and a philosophical and deep level. She gets it, she understands. She's the Neil to my Todd/Dalton (minus the whole dying thing).

Anyway, that quote is something we discussed last night and it also happened to be a topic for a free-write paper I had to do for Comp II and I would like to discuss that here because I think it is something that should be shared, for lack of a better word.

Whenever I read this quote I visualize a small child, a toddler, with their security blanket. When we're small we're scared and so we have this security blanket that covers our entire body and hides us from the things we're scared of. But as we grow and experience more we're scared of less and the blanket shrinks. We don't need it anymore. But somewhere along the lines we realize our own mortality. Somewhere we get scared again, but we can no longer hide underneath our security blanket. We know too much, we've experienced too much and we can't hide from what it is that is scaring us. It doesn't matter how much we cry, or how much we resist we have to face the truth.

And sometimes the truth hurts. Sometimes it makes us cry and scream, sometimes it makes us want to curl up in a ball and ignore the rest of the world for a while. But in the end we have to accept it as the truth and learn to deal with it. It sucks, to put it bluntly. But sometimes, the truth doesn't hurt. It leads to great things and happy moments. But you're never really sure which is going to happen, and that's what makes us scared. It's those painful moments that make us stronger, it's those hurting truths that make the good times that much better.

So yes, truth is like a blanket, because somehow the truth will always get through and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad, but no matter what it will always be the truth.