The purpose of school - Part III

Read Part I
Read Part II

Last week for the first time I watched "The Apprentice" (yes, I got a TV...more on that in a later post). I'm kinda digging this show! I got interested in it when I read Donald Trump's two latest books. Not only is The Apprentice about what I do for a living - project management - but this season it also pits college-educated people against those who went to school only through high school. This is a favorite subject of mine.

I did not go to college. I remember my dad telling me in high school that if I really wanted to go to college there were ways to work to make that happen. But him giving me money for it was not one of them. He was a divorced father raising four children on a modest salary. I never had a strong desire to go to college, nor did I have any idea what I wanted to do for a living. So I took my Chicago public high school typing skills and got a job downtown as a secretary. That was 27 years ago.

Since that first secretarial job, I have worked with a lot of people who went to college and a lot who didn't. I've worked with college graduates who could not operate a copier (after extensive training) and with high school graduates who reached the top of their organizations.

Don't get me wrong. College is a good thing. If you have the means to pay and the desire to learn, you should go and work hard and absorb every nugget of knowledge you can get for your tuition dollar. But if you do, keep in mind a few things:

1. The working world is generally kinder to college graduates, but you still have to do the work! Your degree is not a free pass to business success. You may not have to start at the very bottom, but you still have to prove yourself at every level in order to advance.

2. The college professors who have not been in the working world may act like they know it all, but how could they? Unless they have been out there practicing what they teach, all they have are book smarts. If you can find a professor who has actually worked in the field they are teaching, that's the one you will learn the most from.

3. What you think you want to do for a living now may change after you've got that degree in hand. That's OK. You will not have wasted all that money. At the very least, you learned how to work hard and the degree has value no matter what you end up doing.

Whether you go to college or not, learning never stops. When you get a new job, learn everything there is to know about the company and your position. Do your job well, and ask for more work. Show up on time, treat your employers and co-workers with respect, and put a little extra in everything you do. Or a lot extra. That's what gets you noticed and you will be the first one who comes to the boss's mind when there is an opportunity to advance.

Had I known all this when I first started, I would be a lot farther than I am. But that's OK. I love my job, and I'm loving school. I'm in a project management certificate program and got an "A" in my first class! I will never be one of those super-successful, high-profile, entrepreneurial-type project managers (Donald Trump works much too hard for my taste). But I will always be one of the best employees a company could ever have!

The purpose of school is to prepare you for life and work - with both practical knowledge and social skills. Our country's educational system may not be the best it could be, but it's what we have and it's there for you. Take everything you can from it.

You will be out of school sooner than you think (it only seems like it takes forever). Before you know it you'll be at your ten year high school reunion!

Hang in there!

The purpose of school - Part II

Read Part I

This is the time of year that most kids are counting the days until the end of school. If you're a high school senior, this is probably the toughest time of all...finals coming up, college applications to complete, prom decisions to make. And all the while, your parents going nutso on you.

Since your first word and your first step, your parents have been thrilled with every major milestone of growing up. So now that you are about to make your biggest step of all - into college and/or the working world - they have gone weird. Every decision you make seems wrong to them. They seem to be regressing. You're grown up but they still treat you like a child. Sound familiar?

The reason you are so anxious to be done with school is that you've probably grown beyond it and you are straining against the ropes keeping you there. None of my friends in high school wanted to stay there longer. Sure, we cried at our graduation and vowed to stay in touch. But the sweetest day of our lives (up until that time) was the next morning, when we DID NOT HAVE TO GO ANY MORE, EVER AGAIN!

School is not just a place to learn your ABCs and 123s. Since the first day you walked into preschool or kindergarten, you have been maturing socially. From a small class for half a day to multiple classes and extra-curricular activities that fill a very long day (and sometimes evenings and weekends) - school is designed to prepare you for the "real world". The problem is, it can only go so far.

The "real world" - that is, your life after high school - is so much different that there is no way to really prepare you. No matter how diverse, high school is still a closed society. Will you actually stay close to those friends you cry with on graduation day? Not likely. It's not that your friendship was not sincere. It's just that it was forged in a closed society. When you have your freedom, your perspective changes and the things you had in common with those friends tend to disappear. By the way, this goes for boyfriend/girlfriend relationships as well.

You don't really become fully who you are until you are free to explore life and all its possibilities. I am not the person I was in high school. I'm not the person I was ten years ago. Sure, my basic personality and tendencies are similar, but the way I look at things - like work and marriage and relationships - has changed a lot.

Who you are at this very moment is a compilation of all your experiences and how you reacted to them. Until you are out of school and experiencing the freedom of adulthood, those experiences are limited.

Your parents may seem irrational. They may seem to refuse to accept that you are growing up. But cut them some slack. Parents act out of love, but also out of fear and pain. They don't want you to make the mistakes they did, but they know you have to make your own and learn from them.

And when you have teenage children, you will act the very same way. Guaranteed.

(to be continued)

The purpose of school

I may end up naming this site "The Occasional Blogger". It's been weeks again, and I've got lots to tell you about what is going on in my life, but I first need to follow up on my last post.

I do not have any children of my own. I don't have to worry daily about how my nieces and nephews and the kids in the church youth club are doing in school. But when I read stories about the sad state of education, like the one I linked to in my last post, it hits me hard. I worry that the kids in my life are suffering needlessly.

For I know something about school that most of you don't. Some of your parents know this as well, but as parents it would be irresponsible for them to tell you. So I will:

School is temporary, and ultimately not that important.

WHOA! Did I just say that? Am I advocating the end of mandatory education? Not at all. School is temporary and unimportant. Learning is for life and the one of the most important things in the world. It may be a paradox, but it's true. And if you do not know what a paradox is, look it up in the dictionary right now.

Let me put it this way. You know that English teacher who hates you?* In a few months or years you will be out of that class or that school and that person will be out of your life. But what they teach you - or to state it more accurately, what you allow them to teach you - stays with you forever. For example, if they already taught you the word "paradox", you didn't just have to look it up.

*None of your teachers hate you. For the most part teachers are good people with good intentions who may hate their job at the moment. And even if they did actually hate you, it is their problem and don't take it personally.

So now that I've opened that "can of worms" (old person expression meaning that I've started some trouble), I'll have to follow up with a new post quickly so you don't think it's OK to disrespect your teachers or to skip school.

But right now, I have homework to do. Because guess what? At the ripe old age of middle age (assuming I live to be 90), I'm back in school.

(to be continued)

Is school really this bad?

Last week as I was pulling my car into the parking lot of my office building, I heard breaking news on the radio. There was an unconfirmed report of an explosion and fire at a west suburban high school.

My niece's high school.

I didn't panic. I waited for a few minutes to see if there was more to report. Then I went into the office and called my sister. The line was busy. I figured that if the school was evacuated my niece would call her mother first (I was right, that's why the her phone was busy). Within an hour the story was on the web and I found out there were no injuries.

It ended up that an unhappy student, who had begged his parents weeks before for permission to drop out, had ignited water bottles filled with gasoline and surrounded by newspaper in is locker. Well, he got his wish...he's out of school now. And facing 10 years in prison.

This whole thing baffled me for days. I know high school is difficult, both academically and socially...it was when I was there. But what could be so bad that would drive a person to such action? We don't know the specific's of this young man's life. The story dropped from the news after two days - no injuries, no blood, no story.

And I have to admit it dropped from my mind too. Until I read this column. And this is a middle school!

Is it true? Are most adults clueless about this? Please, I am begging for comments here. I really want to know what is going on.

From friends to loves to loving friends - Part III

Read Part I
Read Part II

So here we are, a generation later. Some in our circle of friends have hit the big 5-0, and the rest of us are heading there fast. We watch in amazement as our children form friendships in much the same way we did, and we see into the future.

Because guess what, kids? In twenty years or so you will find yourselves where we are today. You will be immersed in your own lives, working, paying bills, watching your children grow into adults. And once in a great while you will have the opportunity to get together with your friends from these days.

The bonds of friendship you form now will reappear every time you are together, no matter how rare that is. It will be like magic...like nothing has changed - mostly because you keep telling the same old stories (and are in denial about how you are aging). Your kids will be embarassed by your behavior during these gatherings, never realizing that they too will have their turn at such middle-aged reunions.

And what about those Girls from Pittsburgh? Two of them ended up in my own family (or I should say, I ended up in theirs). When I married Daniel, CL became my sister-in-law, and KK became my cousin-in-law! Both are the dearest of friends, especially CL who helped me through the roughest year of my life, which was also one of her roughest.

And the third one - KP - married my ex-boyfiend (the guy of the letters). Twenty years later, she (along with my ex) took a day off of work and drove hundreds of miles to sit all day with me beside my husband's casket.

We were in love with those Guys from Detroit for a reason. They were fine boys. Today they are fine men who have built strong families with wonderful women who just happened to not be us. Because we didn't let pettiness or jealously ruin our relationships when their hearts went in another direction, we are still friends today.

And we all still love each other.

From friends to loves to loving friends - Part II

Read Part I

Before I continue the story of the Boys from Detroit meet the Girls from Pittsburgh, I want to something clear...this story is written from my perspective only. I am speaking only for myself, even when I use an occasional "we" instead of "I".

At that time, the thing we looked foward to most was the Youth Convocation...a four or five-day-long gathering sponsored by the church and held at a college. Not only were we away from home, "living" with our friends instead of our parents...but we would be with those guys we liked/loved so much.

Every other year, this gathering was national, with kids from all over the country. But the first such gathering I attended was the off-year, "diocesan" or regional version. And our diocese contained Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee (and other areas in the Midwest). So we pretty much had the Guys from Detroit to ourselves, if you don't count the stupid cheerleaders having their "camps" at the same college.

So the next year when the convocation was national and held in Princeton, New Jersey, the character of our friendship was changing but we didn't know it. Connections were made that week that we were not aware of until later. We were out of high school, so really the landscape of our entire lives was changing. And frankly, I didn't like it.

With most of the group in college and the rest working, we had little time to spend together. It seemed like the bond of our group was weakening. Other interests captured us all, and the idea that any of the Girls from Chicago ending up with a Guy from Detroit seemed less and less likely.

Within a few years, three of the Guys from Detroit married Girls from Pittsburgh. Two of the Guys married girls from Buffalo, and a couple of the Guys ended up marrying girls they met in college. In the end, the only Chicago-Detroit relationship to lead to marriage was mine. And that didn't happen until 15 years after Princeton.

When I started writing this story a month ago, I had a point which I am struggling to remember. I think it was that friendships change over time, because we as individuals change. But certain friendships stay with you in a special way. And some people who you barely know (and won't give a chance to) now may end up being some of your best friends later.

(to be continued)

Happy Birthday, Aunt G!

My loving Aunt G hits a big milestone today. She's in pretty good health physically, but is facing several other challenges in her life. She has a strong faith and projects a positive attitude no matter what she is going through. She is my role model for an aunt, a wife, a mother, a woman, and a friend.

If I could, I would shield her from every bad thing. But none of us can do that for anyone.

So on your birthday, all I can offer is a simple prayer that God will grant you continued good health and some moments of precious peace.

I love you very much.

Checking in

Just a quickie to tell you I'm fine...just been busy, then lazy, then a bit under the weather. I'll get back to blogging soon!

Happy birthday, blog!

It was one year ago today, almost to the minute, that I published my first post.

According to my profile, I average two posts a week and have written 25,677 words. That's not bad, considering I signed up for a correspondence course in creative writing over three years ago and never made it past Lesson 2.

I've said it before...I don't know and don't care how many readers I have. My only wish now is the same as it was when I first started - to offer to the young people in my life some insights that only come from living life. Just like you teach those younger than you...we all learn from each other.

Thanks for reading.

From friends to loves to loving friends

Yesterday I got back from a long visit to the second family in Michigan. We always have such a great time, but this visit was extra special. Not only because it was the Christmas season, but because I got to see a lot of dear old friends.

I guarantee there will be friends like these in your lives. You will meet at a time when you have a lot in common...like belonging to the same church and youth club. You will be about the same age, going through the normal stuff for that age. You will get crushes on each other and imagine your lives together in your future.

In our time, it was the "Girls from Chicago" (which included one from Milwaukee) and the "Guys from Detroit". We would travel to various locations in the Midwest for youth meetings, staying at hotels and having ridiculous numbers of people stay in a room to save money. We had a sliding scale of costs for the rooms...if you got a bed you paid more than if you had to sleep on the floor. The use of pillows and blankets also came at a premium. Actually, nobody slept on the cold, wet beds after a particularly ammo-intensive ice fight.

Eventually special relationships formed between a Chicago gal and a Detroit guy. At that age, I really thought that we would all end up marrying each other. But being still in high school we had seen barely a glimpse of the world and its possibilities.

The Girls from Chicago certainly had not foreseen the possibility that the Guys from Detroit would ever meet girls that they liked more than us. So we never saw it coming - the event that would rock our world and change our circle of friends forever...

...the Guys from Detroit discovered the Girls from Pittsburgh.

(to be continued)

Happy New Year

Good friends, good food, and "I Will Survive" on the karaoke machine. So far 2005 ROCKS!

Love, peace, health and prosperity to you in the New Year!

The best gift ever

The notion of a "merry" Christmas may seem ridiculous or even cruel to a person who is hurting. All over the world tonight people are silently suffering - people who have recently lost loved ones, or whose loved ones cannot be with them, or who for whatever reason have hearts and spirits that are broken.

But today is about commemorating the best gift ever, God's gift of His Son. For me, Christmas carols do not come close to doing justice to the magnificence of this awesome gift. This simple song, found on the CD "The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir Live...Again", does.

Smile, make them think you're happy
Lie, and say that things are fine.
And hide that empty longing that you feel
Don't ever show it, just keep your heart concealed.

Why are the days so lonely?
I wonder where, where can a heart go free?
And who will dry the tears that no one sees?
There must be someone to share your silent dreams.

Caught like a leaf in the wind
Looking for a friend, where can you turn?
Whisper the words of a prayer
And you'll find Him there, arms open wide, love in His eyes.

Jesus, He meets you where you are.
Oh, Jesus, He heals your secret scars
All the love you're longing for is Jesus
The friend of a wounded heart.

Joy, comes like the the morning
Hope, deepens as you grow
and peace, beyond the reaches of your soul,
Comes blowing through you, for love has made you whole.

Once like a leaf in the wind
Looking for a friend, where could you turn?
You spoke the words of a prayer
And you found Him there, arms open wide, love in His eyes.

Jesus, He meets you where you are.
Oh, Jesus, He heals your secret scars
All the love you're longing for is Jesus
The friend of a wounded heart.

("Friend of a Wounded Heart" Lyrics by Wayne Watson)

Accept this gift from God, and your heart can be healed.

I don't feel the way I look

There is something in our brains that distorts what we see when we look at ourselves in the mirror. At over 300 pounds, I have no illusions that I appear to the world as a thin, healthy-looking woman. But when I look in the mirror, I still see something different than what a camera sees.

I got a new PC camera last week and have been playing around taking pictures and video clips. Tonight I bought a new hat, and looking in the rear view mirror in the car on the way home I saw myself as cute and sassy...I liked it. But in front of the camera now it is another story. It's just a hat on top of a very large round face.


 

The "me" that is seen by the world (the same me that is captured in photos) is not the me I see. The people who know me probably see what I see for the most part. The ones who don't may choose not to get to know me because what they see is undesirable. This may have happened recently when I was introduced to the brother of a friend who thought we might...you know...want to go out. He seemed nice, and I let him know I was interested, but I haven't heard from him. I'm not sure it is because he was turned off by my weight, but that's what I suspect.

This may sound conceited, but I feel sorry for that guy if indeed he wrote me off because of my looks. He missed out on knowing me. Funny thing is, he weighs almost as much as I do and I was willing to give him a chance.

Because the way I look does not reflect the real me. And that's probably true for most people, regardless of their size.

Here's something that doesn't happen every day

Yesterday at lunchtime I decided to get my car washed, since the prediction for the rest of the week was drastically falling temperatures.

I waited in the line for the automatic wash for about 15 minutes. Once I got in, I couldn't get out! The moving bar that shoots the water, soap, wax, etc. never got past my front end. It kept starting and stopping and the lighted board kept saying "back up slowly" then "pull foward slowly". It seems I was never in quite the right position.

After five or six times, I tried pulling all the way up, but the front door would not open. I finally pulled all the way back and asked the guy in line behind me to call for help. (I had left both my cell phones on my desk at the office.)

After I was freed, I went to the cashier and asked for my money back. Bless his heart, the guy felt really bad...but he made me a totally ridiculous offer. "Would you like a free car wash?" Um, where - in the chamber of soapy death I just escaped?

I got my $6 back, and drove to the office with soap on my hood and the rest of my car still dirty. But I was glad to be free!

Dreams

A web friend of mine lost her mother to cancer a couple of weeks ago. She's going through a lot of the same feelings and experiences I had when I lost my husband. She recently wrote about a dream she had, in which her mother was so real she actually felt her when they hugged in the dream.

I had many similar dreams in the months after Daniel's death. But there was one dream that I will remember and cherish for the rest of my life.

In this dream, Daniel and I were standing side-by-side at the back of what I can only describe as an outdoor church, with trees and flowers everywhere, birds singing, and soft music playing. I was looking up at him, with my left hand threaded under and resting on his offered right arm. He was glowing! He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen - tall and slim, with wavy golden hair and crystal blue eyes. He was in golden attire. At some point I realized I was also beautifully golden - slim, with long gold curls, and wearing a golden gown and a crown of flowers in my hair. We were about to get married, again. I spoke the only words of the dream:

"Isn't it wonderful? Not every man gets a second chance at life."

My first thought upon waking was that this might be what heaven is like. Maybe when you meet your loved ones in heaven, they will appear as their essense - beautiful and full of love. And their love for you will be tangible, something you can feel down to your bones.

For those few sleeping moments, Daniel was alive for me. My friend is feeling her mother's love in her dreams. The love is real, but the dreams can be scary. And they are bittersweet because we wake up, and our loved one is "gone" again.

But they are not completely gone, are they? Not as long as we love them.

Real Live Preacher

Reading is one of my passions, especially reading about real people.

I've been reading a blog called Real Live Preacher for a long time now, and thought you too would enjoy a two-part essay about his grandfather, a real Texas oilman.

Oh, my darlin'...

STOP THE PRESSES!! NEWS FLASH!! Aunt Judie ate some fruit. Real fruit. A couple of Clementines, those small oranges that are everywhere right now. My hands smell wonderful! And no seeds...sweeeeeeet!

A short trip to Never-land

The other day for a short time I found myself in Never-land...not the imaginary Peter Pan place, but my own private, dark Never-land. In this place I use the word "never" in a sorry, self-pitying way:

"I'll never lose this weight."
"I'll never be married again."
"They will never promote me."

I think the word "never" should be used sparingly, maybe only in sentences like "I would never rob a bank" or, "thank you, but I never eat head cheese".

When you misuse the word "never" in projecting the future, you deny the endless possibilities of life. Words are important, especially the ones you use when talking to yourself!

I didn't stay long in Never-land...in fact, I consider it a sign of significant personal growth that I was able to get out of it so quickly. All I had to do was remind myself of some of the things I used to say, like "I'll never get married" and "I'll never weigh that much".

You cannot know what will or will not happen in the future. Never forget that.

Small changes - Part III

Read Part I
Read Part II

Three weeks ago I started an effort to change my life, one habit at a time. Since then my new habit of eating breakfast at home has taken solid hold. I have only missed doing this once or twice, but did not resort to the fast-food solution. I'm also still at just two cups of coffee at home in the morning, and am having none at work (which is cool...no "coffee breath" worries).

In the meantime, another change happened quite by accident. As most of you know, I am a serious junk food junkie, with a love for McDonald's that goes back to my first Quarter Pounder with Cheese in the early 1970's. And the fries! Incomparable! If the saying "you are what you eat" were literal, your Aunt Judie would be a potato.

Until a few weeks ago I had no intention of watching the movie "Super Size Me". This horrible man was trying to insult my good friend Ronald, and blame him for my weight problem. But on the recommendation of my friend W, I added it to my Netflix queue. When it came I thought I would go get a McD's meal and eat it while I watched the movie just to spite the film maker. It's a good thing I didn't.

The guy ate McD's every day, three times a day, for a month. He bought the Super Size meal if it was offered to him. He got sick in a number of ways, and actually vomited from eating so much on day two or three. But once his system got used to the higher volume, he was able to keep it down. (Our bodies are designed to adapt...to the good and the bad.)

Now, in all the years I have eaten at McD's, I have maybe once or twice had it three times in one day. But I had never regularly eaten the quantity this guy put in his body. And I am a firm believer in personal responsibility. Nobody forced me to eat this stuff. I liked it!

But something about this movie just changed me. I have not gone near a McDonald's in over two weeks, which must be a personal record. I cannot get the picture of him throwing up out of my mind. That, plus one of the deleted scenes which revealed that the fries do not decompose. He had a batch on his desk in a glass jar for 10 weeks, and they never changed...no mold, no spoilage. I imagine there is a fry or two under the seat of the first car I owned, sitting in a junk yard somewhere, still looking fresh 25 years later. This is just wrong!

I'm not saying I will never eat at McD's again, but it sure doesn't appeal to me at the moment. I'm cooking more now, bringing my lunch to work once in a while, and even eating an occasional real vegetable. I'm saving money too, by not eating out all the time. The benefits of change seem to multiply.

My next conscious effort to make a change started yesterday. My apartment complex has community mailboxes scattered throughout the neighborhood. Instead of driving up to my mailbox a couple times a week, I am going to walk there every day.

My vacation in another world

It has taken me days to get back in sync with my home planet. My week-long visit with my cousin and his family truly felt like being in another world.

And I loved it.

For a short time I was completely immersed in an alternative universe. I was transported from my singleton life of drinking from the milk carton and peeing with the door open into to being one member in a household of six. Except for the fact that (my cousin) Dad S was off work several days because of the holiday, I believe I witnessed the regular routine of a stay-at-home mom household.

The days began early for Mom K, as her four-year-old J regulary wakes up at six no matter how much (or how little) sleep she has had. They quietly go downstairs and go about their morning routine while the rest of the house continues to sleep. Two-year-old A wakes up later and happily sings in her crib for a while until she decides she wants to get up and "pages" Mom through the monitor.

After a day that could include any combination of pre-school, play dates, shopping, errands, time-outs, reading, singing, drawing, playing games, cooking, doing dishes and laundry, Mom K gets a little time for herself before retiring for the night. Dad S makes the most of his time with the little ones in the evening after the family dinner, and helps put them to bed.

This was a fascinating experience for me; completely foreign compared to my growing up years. S and K have made a wonderful life for their family.

Now I'm back home, back to work, back to peeing with the door open (at home, not at work). I miss the home cooked family dinners, the dog with the slimy toy in her mouth begging for attention, the afternoon naps (which I took every day at the same time as the little ones), the adult conversations, and the happy energy of their world.

But I especially miss J, with her bright eyes and curious mind, and A, and her totally sincere declarations of love a hundred times a day.

I need a hug.