Over the weekend, political correctness hit a new high (or low, depending on how you look at it).
It is a long standing tradition for the president to pardon a
Thanksgiving turkey. I understand the humor in the tradition, but have
always thought it to be a little silly since being eaten is typically
what domesticated turkeys have been bred and raised for.
In the last few years, many city mayors have started doing this on a local level and sending a turkey to go live the rest of
its years on a farm somewhere with the turkeys pardoned in previous
years. However, this past Thanksgiving, the mayor of Seattle decided to
show of the eccentricity of his city by pardoning two tofurkeys. Not
just one, but two. Read the story here.
For those
of you who may not know, a tofurkey is a turkey-shaped hunk of tofu and
wheat protein which has never and will never be alive. This makes the
'pardoning' kind of…well, pointless. If you disagree with me about the
validity of this strangeness, consider this. The tofurkeys were then
donated to a food bank to be fed to the homeless at a local shelter.
This means they were never even actually pardoned to begin with. They are still going to be eaten!
On the upside, if for any reason I was ever in a position where the only
way I could have a Thanksgiving dinner would be from a shelter or a
community food drive and they served me tofurkey, it just might be the
jolt I needed to get my life back on track.
Since I work in a school, I have a few fantastic perks. The best one being that I have summers off. I don't get paid during this time, but having that time off is wonderful. I gives me the time to do things that a typical job would generally prevent me from having the opportunity to do. This past summer , I took advantage of one of those opportunities.
People don't usually believe me when I say this, but I have a son, Christian, who's a rock star. He isn't selling out huge stadiums or giving tours of his home on MTV's Cribs, but his band is seeing a lot of success. He travels all over the country doing what he loves and will soon be going out on a tour of Canada. He plays lead guitar in the band AS WE ARE. You can hear their music here.
I got this image from Google. Did you know Google tracks you? Creepy, huh?
While he was in Indianapolis helping me move, he invited me to accompany him on his next leg of the tour. Fifteen days playing venues in Iowa, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Despite being newlywed, my loving wife encouraged me to take this trip. I don't get to see Christian much and this was a wonderful opportunity to spend some quality time together.
So, a week later we left. There were the four guys in the band and me. They put me in charge of merchandise sales. For over two weeks, we slept in a van, ate peanut butter sandwiches, schmoozed our way into people's homes or hotel rooms to get showers, and lived on almost no sleep. It was rough, but I had a great time. Plus, we hung out with a lot of bands that I am a big fan of. Here are the ones that I can remember meeting over the course of this tour.
Piercing the Darkness • Newsboys • Bread of Stone • We are Leo • Mark Schultz • Medic • For King and Country • Everfound • Plumb • The Crossing • Random Hero • Project 86 • Echo • Chris Day • Zachary Freedom • Michael James Band • Disciple • Willet • Lybecker • Unspoken • Leeland • 7eventh Time Down • Rhett Walker Band • The Afters • Bob Lenz • Offering • Steven Curtis Chapman • Chasynn Canaan • Written in Red • Unscene Patrol • Kindred • At the Wayside • Satellites & Sirens • We As Human • The Neverclaim • Climbing Blind • Tim Timmons • Love & the Outcome • Kerrie Roberts • Offering • A Life Set Apart • Manafest • Children 18:3 • Fight the Fade • As Clouds Break • Scott Stapp (of CREED) • Tru-Serva • Eternity Focus • BOTB • Dawna Johnson • Paul Williams • Bubba Dowling • DJ Chris VanDam • What Was Lost • Red Jumpsuit Apparatus • Nine Lashes • The Elim Arrival • Crimson River • Last Watch • Katie Danielle • Captives Set Free • Chris Sanchez • Inner Rain • Death and Desire • Break the Fall • Phinehas • The Protest • Thousand Foot Krutch
Ft Yates, ND Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Reservation
We lived a few days in a parked RV, slept some nights in a church basement, and stayed on an Indian reservation in North Dakota for a few days. I saw Mount Rushmore, got a tour of the seedy side of Rapid City, SD from a homeless man, talked my way into the projection room of a movie theater, and spent an afternoon learning to play bridge with a bunch of old ladies in Montana.
Every single day was an adventure due to two simple facts. First, I tend to seek out a good time wherever I go. Second, we had some pseudo-celebrity influence that I was more than willing to take advantage of. Several times each day, I would walk into some business explaining who we were, pass out a few CDs, drop some names of people we had just hung out with and then explain what I wanted to do. It was very rare that someone told us no.
Once the typical person learns that you are in a traveling band and can prove it (or even better, they have heard of you), they bend over backwards to accommodate you. Luckily, I wasn't looking to be deviant. Most of the time, I just wanted to get some interesting pictures. Our first photo op was in Osceola, Iowa. I talked a city employee into letting us into the city council chambers. She actually unlocked the doors and just walked away. I assume it's because everyone trusts musicians.
Next, we visited the Women's Auxiliary of the AMVETS in Osceola. They taught us how to quilt.
In Terry, Montana, we walked into the Historic Kempton Hotel and and asked to borrow a vacuum cleaner. They just handed one over without even asking what it was for.
Then, we went to visit the city pool. Paul had an idea of a shot he wanted to get. They weren't open yet, but they let us in anyway.
I know that this is probably not what most people think of when they hear the phrase "living the rock 'n roll life", but I know I enjoyed it.
A couple of weeks ago, I was nominated to do the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Now, I am sure that most of you are familiar with what this is, but for the few of you who may not be, I'll try to explain.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
(ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," is a progressive
neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the
spinal cord. It basically causes the muscles of the body to stop receiving nourishment.
Sometime within the last couple of years, someone came up with a genius idea and the Ice Bucket Challenge was born. It involves a person dumping a bucket of ice water over their head and then challenging someone else (usually three others) to do the same. This is usually captured on video and posted on the internet for everyone to see.
A person who has been challenged is to donate $100 to the ALS Association (www.alsa.org). However, many people do not have an extra $100 laying around, so they have another option. If they dump ice water on their head and post a video of it on the internet, they can give a smaller amount of their choosing. They are also to nominate three more people for the challenge. This is all supposed to happen within 24 hours.
Whether the people nominated donate the full amount or a smaller amount, the cycle lives on as long as the nominees continue to keep nominating more people. As of the time of this posting, the ALS Association website states that the Ice Bucket Challenge has raised over $114 million dollars for the cause.
After being nominated myself, I sprang to action that same afternoon. Here is my video.
I wanted to do something different from the thousands of other videos that have been uploaded to YouTube and have a little bit of fun. It took some courage for me to remove my shirt in front of a camera, but I was happy with my video and glad I did it…for a few days.
Before long, I started noticing posts on Facebook and Twitter that seemed to condemn the practice of participating in this challenge. Anti-Ice Bucket memes started popping up all over my feed.
People were posting about how they had been challenged, but chose to just donate in private and not make a public spectacle out of their generosity like all the attention whores.
Others ridiculed the people who participated in order to get out of having to give. This one had a little bit of a point since there were a large number of people who had completely misunderstood how this was supposed to work. People willing to dump the ice were not supposed to do this to get out of donating. It was to be able to give a smaller amount and pass the challenge on to others to raise even more money.
Now, these posts may have already been there before I participated and I was only now noticing because I had recently done it. Also, none of this was directed specifically toward me. Since I was seeing it on Facebook, that means it was coming from my friends. People who I love and I know love me, so I did not take any of this personally, but it did bother me a bit. Suggesting that me participating in fundraising for a worthy charity was bad or self-serving in some way just didn't sit well with me.
First of all, suggesting that the people who participated in this challenge are a bunch of greedy attention whores* is completely unfair. It is true that I only donated to ALS because I was nominated for the challenge. Sure, I could have donated without participating or even without having been nominated, but there are literally thousands of causes out there. No one knows which causes or how many causes I may already be contributing to. They also don't know how much or for how
long I have been giving. The fact that I put a video of my dumping ice
water on my head does not prove that I only give when it is a game. A
person's generosity (or lack of) is in no way indicated by whether or not they chose to participate in this phenomenon.
*The attention whore part I will concede to. I am and always have been an attention whore.
In fact, there are literally thousands of very generous people out there who have not contributed to this cause. They have been giving to other causes that they are passionate about. It may be to feed starving children, prevent animal cruelty, raise domestic abuse awareness, clean up a city park, elect a political official, protect the mosquitoes, bring back bell-bottom jeans, or an infinite number of other possible causes. Once again, whether or not a person participated in the Ice Bucket Challenge will tell the observers absolutely nothing about the generosity of that person.
That's a lot of zeros
I will even take this a little further. Participating in the challenge and participating publicly contributes more money to the cause than giving privately. If I privately contribute $100 to ALS, then ALS has $100 they didn't have before and that is a good thing. However, it stops right there. On the other hand, if I give $50 and then challenge three others to do the same, the $50 each of them contributes (plus my $50) adds up to a total of $200 instead of just the original $100. This doesn't even add in the money that will get contributed by the people that they challenge and then the people that they challenge. Even if people only contribute $10 instead of $50, it is still vastly more than the original $100. However the numbers deviate, it cannot be denied that in whatever way people participated or contributed or even completely misunderstood the point of how this is supposed to work, $114 million dollars has been raised with this challenge.
$114,000,000 That's a lot of zeros.
If we had relied on the adage of people should just give more, then this money would not have been raised. I salute the person or team who came up with this idea and I am sure it will not be the last time that people are looked down upon for doing something good.
You know, it's really easy to maintain a blog when you are only posting once every few months.
I feel that I owe you all an apology. My writing has really slacked off in the last year. I do have a reason for this, but most people don't want to hear excuses. That doesn't mean I won't offer any, it just means most people don't like hearing them and fortunately for me, I am not most people. I am only me and me has been busy.
However, I have reason to believe that my writing is about to start up again. Mainly, because the thing that has kept me so busy has just come to an end. After several years of hard work, I finally completed my Master's Degree. This means that I have a lot of spare time now as compared to the last 30 months.
DISCLAIMER: It's pat myself on the back time.
Plus, I graduated with a 4.0 GPA. I got straight A's through the entire program. This means the very thing I am always telling my family, neighbors, co-workers, and students: I AM A GENIUS!
Since I am a genius, I have a social responsibility to share my intellectual insights with the rest of the world. Therefore, I will start writing again this week. Plus, a woman at my new church just discovered my blog and I need to produce some new stuff for her to read. I wouldn't want to give her the wrong impression before she gets to know me personally.
It's been over four months since my last post. A lot can happen over four months. A lot has happened. I've really dropped the ball. Let me try to give a quick recap of what I have not written about.
My daughter left high school with a bang.
Valentine's Day has come and gone, as well as St. Patrick's Day. I got a job in the Indianapolis Public School system. Spring Break is over. Summer vacation has started. My daughter graduated high school. Orange is the New Black has released season two onto Netflix. Russia invaded the Ukraine. An 18 year old girl in New Jersey lost the case against her parents when she sued them for college tuition. The Big Bang Theory got picked up for three more seasons. Casey Kasem died and I got married.
I'm not going to try to cover all of that in this post. One thing at a time. Let's start with the last item on the list. I got married.
OK. It's 7 o' clock. Let's compare stories. I got married today. Who can top that one?
— Brett Minor (@brettminor) May 4, 2014
I am sure that I have lost some followers since my writing has drastically slowed in the last year, but my long-time readers know that on May 2, 2012, I met face-to-face with Red of Doesn't Speak Klingon. Before that, we met through our blogs, we conversed in the comment sections. We traded emails and eventually started making phone calls. We then dated for almost two years while living 200 miles apart.
Last December, I moved to Indianapolis to take advantage of some educational opportunities to finish up my degree. I moved to a big city for these opportunities. I chose Indianapolis because that was where Red lived. We had already seriously discussed marriage, but there was nothing official. I thought it would be nice to get to date while living in the same town. Those bi-weekly commutes were hard on both of our wallets.
It didn't take long before we knew marriage was in our future. We just needed to decide when. Neither one of us was interested in the ceremony, but didn't want to exclude family either, so eloping or just going to a courthouse was out of the question. We had the end of the summer in mind. I would have just finished my degree and she would be moved into a bigger place ready for me to come join her.
Once we got her moved in, we were just waiting for the time to pass. I had my place, she had hers, and we knew we would be married in 3 to 4 months. However, no one else knew that. We had decided to keep it quiet so it could be ours and no one else's. We wanted no family input on how it should be done, what food should be served, what should be worn, or who should be invited. We just wanted to be married. We didn't know when it would happen, but we did know we wouldn't be giving much notice to anyone.
One Saturday morning, Red was discussing the travel plans of her sisters. They were both going to be in town the following weekend. Her family is so spread out, they are very rarely all in the same place. Her brothers aren't even in the country. So, I suggested doing it the following Sunday.
Red: "Are you serious?"
Me: "Sure. Why not?"
Red: "OK!"
Me: "Great! We're getting married in eight days!"
I quickly called Chuck, a local minister friend of mine, to check his availability. We then called Red's parents to tell them our plans and get permission to do it in their backyard. We called our immediate family members and assured everyone that nothing was needed but their presence. For the people who like to stress about these types of events, we had provided them with the gift of only getting to stress for eight days.
We did get some questions.
"Would you like me to pick up some ___________?"
"No."
"Hey. Should I bring a ____________?"
"No."
"How about if we get a few _____________?"
"No."
Red and I had decided that more "stuff" and involvement would just make the event bigger and more stressful with things to plan. We were going to show up at her parents' house after church with some pizzas and soda for everyone and when they all got there, get married. That was a simple plan and we wanted it to stay that way.
We only put effort into three things.
Red SOLO cups - we specifically had red SOLO cups simply because someone told us that we couldn't (not one of the guests or family).
We purposefully mismatched the plates we used. I had a 10-pack of Happy Birthday, 10-pack of sports themed, 10-pack of underwater themed, and 10-pack of Disney princesses. This was done to demonstrate that we were not concerned with protocol or appearance.
We begged everyone to not mention the ceremony to anyone or put it on social media. We wanted to announce it after the fact. Everyone respected our wishes.
Red's mother did get us a beautiful cake and one of her sisters bought items for the best man, maid of honor, and cheerleader to hold (we had a cheerleader instead of a flower girl).
Notice the casual style. (Except for the cheerleader's tiara and my tuxedo t-shirt)
It occurred to us after picking the date that May 4th is Star Wars Day.
"May the Fourth (force) be with you."
Get it? Plus, since Red is a huge Star Wars geek, it turned out to be the perfect day to do it. That's why there were light sabers. Thank you, Hestia.
We had 15 guests (plus the minister and his 6 kids), a day that could not have been more beautiful, and every family invited was able to make it. Plus, our main goal for the day was accomplished. We were married.
I only met this wonderful woman because I started a blog in October 2010.
Two weeks ago, I hopped on a plane with my beautiful girlfriend, Red of Doesn't Speak Klingon, and my daughter Kirsten. Red was headed to Delaware to participate in her tenth Polar Bear Plunge and since I had participating a Polar Bear Plunge on my Bucket List, she asked if I would like to join her.
*Although, I suspect she had an ulterior motive. I think she likes me.
We reached Delaware two days before the plunge, so we had time to see the sights. Red had lived in this area for 12 years before moving to Indianapolis, so we met up with some of her friends, had some great meals and did some shopping.
Things are done differently from state-to-state. There were several times that I wasn't sure what was going on. For instance, I saw these signs all over the place.
Something is to the left
I would be driving through the city, trying to find my way to whatever we were headed to, so I carefully kept my eyes on the signs. Signs are useful for telling you what is around and how to get to things, but in Delaware they aren't really sure where things are either. As you can see above, the Historical Society and alternate parking are to the right and something is to the left, but the city planners aren't really sure what it is. These signs are all over town with no clue as to what they are directing you toward.
Delaware is also very liberal with how numbers work. Walking around town, I was having trouble deciding what to buy for a souvenir. I got excited when I stumbled upon a store with a sign in the window advertising that everything was under $9.95.
They had some cool stuff in there, but I was afraid to give them any money because I didn't trust their math skills enough to know if they could count change.
The day of the plunge arrived and a wonderful thing happened. The temperature started going up. We had been dealing with sub-zero temperatures in the Midwest for the last month and Delaware had experienced similar temperatures. However, the day of the plunge, the temperature rose. It was up to almost 60 degrees an hour before we jumped in the Atlantic. The water was still 34 degrees, but at least we wouldn't freeze once we got out. That was the part I was most concerned about. I was ready to brave the water, but thought I might die afterward.
The beach was packed with over 2,700 participants and hundreds of spectators. Two hours before plunge time, people were already running around in swimsuits. You expect bikinis on the beach, but not in the middle of winter. There was still snow on the ground!
The Polar Bear Plunge is done to raise money for the Special Olympics and all these people showing up to jump in the frigid water raised over $425,000 at this one event. The excitement was in the air and it was time to jump in. They started the countdown and 2,700 people ran for the water.
This entire time, I had been amazed at how I was not freezing despite having only worn swim trunks for the last 15 minutes. As soon as my feet hit the water, I understood why more people don't do this. Thirty-four degrees is not exactly a comfortable temperature, but I had flown 900 miles for this 'privilege.' It felt like little needles stabbing into my feet, but it was too late to turn back.
My plan was to run in far enough that I could jump in to go totally under and come out. However, the surf pulled away soon after my feet hit the freezing water. I had to chase after the water and soon saw a large wave coming at me. I tucked down enough that it washed over me. Thirty-four degree water on my feet was a shock. Over my entire body really had my attention.
After this time on the beach enjoying a few days outside, I came home to this. We've had a high averaging 15 degrees ever since.
My car the day after I got back. Thank you, Indiana!
Before moving to Indianapolis, I had a job as a courier (which is just a fancy word for deliveryman). I mostly delivered office supplies, but I had a few contracts that involved me delivering blood for the Red Cross and the occasional biopsy sample for a medical firm. The office supplies were always delivered around town, but when I had medical deliveries, I was on the road for a while.
I usually had to deliver to St. Louis (90 miles from my house), but I didn't always make the pick-up in my hometown. Sometimes, I had to drive for a few hours to even get the product. These trips varied from 180 to 450 miles round trip. In addition to these trips being long, they were always done in the evenings after I had already gotten off my regular route. For this reason, I was usually tired before I even started the trip and often needed help staying awake.
Apparently, it is illegal to talk on the phone while driving and my Candy Crush scores tend to suffer when I can't give the game my full attention, so I am always looking for ways to pass the time. On road trips, this is not an issue because I can pull over at any time to look at anything that catches my eye. When making deliveries, I was on a schedule. It didn't take me long to learn that texting passed the time fairly quickly.
NOTE: My phone is voice activated and the texts are read to me over my stereo system. So, I am not looking at my phone. My eyes are on the road. Sometimes I drive with my feet to entertain myself, but I am always looking at the road.
Recently, while going through my phone, I found one of those texting conversations. It was getting late and I needed someone to talk to. So, I shot a text to my brother Kyle. It turned out he was on the road also and even had other people in the vehicle with him, but I was not deterred. Despite the fact that he didn't stay in the conversation for very long, I tried to keep it going since I had an audience.
That conversation is included on the right.
→→→→
I didn't feel bad about it. Kyle has a long history of trying to tie up people's time on the phone. Back in the 80's when answering machines still used miniature cassette tapes, Kyle would talk long enough to use up the entire tape. If the machine had a 30-second cutoff, he would just keep calling back until it was used up. He still does this today, but in today's digital world, there is an almost unlimited amount of time. I have received many voice mail messages from him that lasted longer than the Lord of the Rings trilogy (extended versions).
Now that I don't have that job anymore, I have to find new ways to be annoying.
For a little over a month now, I've been living in the big city of Indianapolis. This is the biggest city (844,000) I have ever lived in. I was in San Juan, Puerto Rico for a year, but it only had 400,000.
There are some major differences between living in the country and living in a big city, but I'm proud to say I have always made the transition fairly well. It's true that I can't pee in my front yard anymore. In fact, I don't even have a front yard. Or a back yard for that matter. Also, as much as I don't like people, I have found it very easy to ignore the multitude of them I am surrounded by. Actually, this is easier to in the city than it was in the country.
Growing up, I really didn't give big city life much thought, but there was one thing I knew. All country people and small town folk know.
You just aren't as safe in the city.
Before leaving my hometown (pop. 400), the worst actual crime committed against me involved someone stealing my garbage and dumping it on the side of the road a mile away. I still don't know what that was about, but I cleaned it up while the police watched. I never found out who did it and the police didn't believe it wasn't me.
Years later, on my first trip to San Juan, I got mugged.
Now, I was in a bad neighborhood and we had been warned to stay indoors after dark, but Dave and I couldn't bear our first night in the Caribbean locked inside someone's house. We just wanted to take a walk. It didn't end well.
Years later, when I actually moved there, someone broke the window on my SUV and stole my wife's purse, which happened to have her wedding ring in it as well as all her identification. These things didn't happen back home in small-town Southern Illinois.
When I moved to Indianapolis, (less than 5 weeks ago) it took all of eight days for my apartment to be robbed. They didn't just rob me, they took something very personal. My pet.
That is a python named Dr. Finklerstein that
we have had for over three years.
When I first moved in, I was told the entire complex was getting new windows. Management would send me a note the day before so I could prep my apartment by moving everything away from the windows. They didn't send me that note. I left my apartment one day to discover they were putting in windows downstairs. I asked if they were doing the upstairs as well and discovered that I needed to go move some of my things. I then left for the day.
Get in the POT!!!
When I came home, I had beautiful new windows, but later discovered that Dr. Finklerstein was not in his terrarium. I searched all through the house as Kirsten cried on the couch, "That dirty Mexican took him."
I don't know how she became so racist.
"He took him home to eat him! Snake is a delicacy in Mexico, you know?"
Um...actually, I don't know if that's true.
I searched through all the dresser drawers, behind the shelves, in the boxes that were only half unpacked and as much behind the water heater as I could see. He was nowhere to be found. And my apartment isn't very big.
I finally relented and did what Kirsten was begging me to do. I called apartment management.
The immediate reaction of the woman on phone was of concern for a loose python in the building. I gently tried to reassure her that this was not the case. I've had this snake for three years and he has never gotten out of his enclosure. I told her that I didn't want to accuse anyone, but it seemed odd that he just happened to disappear on the day someone was in my apartment. I understood they couldn't really do anything about this, but I wanted to make a report in case others reported things missing. I also told her I would not be letting people in my apartment unsupervised anymore. Apartment employees included.
The snake has never escaped from his cage EVER. It's weird that the one time people are in our house the snake disappears...
— Kirstey Minor (@KirsteyKitten) December 27, 2013
While Kirsten was tweeting her rage, I continued looking. Every day for the next week, I expected to see him stick his head out from behind the water heater. I think I got obsessed with the water heater because it was a heat source. I just expected him to gravitate toward it. I finally gave up. Kirsten must be right. Someone fried him up into python nuggets. Or took him home to give to their kids like I did. We're a strange house.
Almost three weeks later, I discover him sleeping on a pile of clothes in a box I had yet to unpack.
I immediately call management to let them know the snake has been found. She responded, "Great. I'll let your neighbors know."
Wonderful. They notified all my neighbors.
At least we'll have something to talk about in the spring when I actually venture outside.
As I stated in my last post, I have moved to Indianapolis. I've been a Hoosier for almost a month now, but it wasn't easy getting here. In my head, I had a plan, but things don't always work the way you want.
The whole reason behind this move was for my schooling and I planned this move to happen during the winter break so it wouldn't interfere with my classes. My last class in the fall was ending on Saturday, December 14 and I would not start up again until January 13. My plan was to move as quickly as possible once school was out, so I could be completely set up (unpacked, internet installed, etc.) once school started again. I didn't want to have to go to the library to write papers and dig through boxes to find my books.
I scheduled my moving day for Tuesday, December 17. I quit my job and told them my last day would be Friday, December 13.
So, my last day at work would be Friday, I wold have my last day of class the next day and then move the following Tuesday. I would be moved and unpacked by Friday and still have three weeks left before school starts. Sounds great, doesn't it?
All of these dates were met, but it didn't happen the way I wanted it to. A major part that I hadn't considered was all the things that have to be done on the weeks leading up to a move. Now, I have moved several times and am familiar with the process. Cable, phones, utilities, and tons of other things have to be taken care of. Lots of phone calls have to be made to prep the new place being moved to. Preliminary packing is useful instead of doing it all in a couple of days. Like I said, I am more than familiar with how all of this works and how much time and effort it takes in that last week to get it all done. What I hadn't considered was what else I had going on that same week.
School is hard
Since my last class was three days before I was to move, that meant my final project was due that day. Being the final project, it is the big BIG one for the class. And this one was huge. I had to put together a month-long lesson plan for an ESL camp with complete lessons, projects, extra activities, explanation of resources, and rationale accounting for every minute. This was no small project. Plus, it was part of a group project. I was teamed up with another person to get all this done. Since I take online classes, we had to try to figure out how to coordinate (e-mail, Facebook, phone calls) to get everything done. This project took up massive amounts of time.
Next, I was in my very last week at work. I had to train my replacement which really wasn't bad except that the first wave of the winter storm hit us on Friday, December 6 (one week before my last day). I have a delivery job. I deliver office supplies all over town. Bad roads make my job miserable and adds a lot of extra time to my day. And since I do not get paid by the hour, extra time makes me cranky.
That first snow fall was so bad, our delivery truck couldn't even get to us. Not that we could have done anything anyway, but not working one day means having double loads brought to us the next day.
So, now, we are a full day behind and having to try to catch up on roads that were still almost impassable. Plus, my job that normally gets knocked out in four to six hours each day is taking up about sixteen hours of my time…and I'm not even getting caught up. There was just too much product and not enough good roads to make all my deliveries. I really needed to get caught up before the week was over, so I wouldn't be dumping this mess on my replacement. However, I needed to be prepping for my move and had this huge project due on Saturday.
In the middle of the last week, my van decides to completely crap out. The $200 I thought it would take to fix the problem turned out to be $1,500 and once they got inside, they told me I would soon need to spend another $2,500 on another major issue. I paid them $50 to just put the vehicle back together and then ran out to buy another car. I just prayed my van would hold together for the last two days of my job. I use my own vehicle to make the deliveries.
The van made it, but just barely. It quit running the very next day. I survived on two hours sleep for three nights in a row and got my project done. On my very last day of work, I delivered every piece of inventory, so my replacement would not be starting off behind. Then packed like a madman for the next two days so I could still leave on schedule.
Since getting here, I have caught up on sleep, but I've received a moving violation, my new car broke down, and my apartment got robbed. However, I think I will save those stories for my next post. I've griped enough.
Eighty days is how long it has been since my last blog post. That's a long time considering that shortly before that post, I vowed to post at least twice a week. Let me try to catch you up on my world a little bit. Some major changes have happened in my life since I last wrote.
I have mentioned many times that I'm working on a graduate degree for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. I am now sixty percent of the way through my degree and should graduate in August. However, there has been some concern over my graduation date for the last several months.
In addition to my classes, I am required to do 100 hours of practicum in this field. In other words, I have to find a place to start teaching English before I graduate and start doing it. I have now been in this program for a year and have yet to acquire a single hour. But this is not for lack of trying.
My problem was due to living in a small town with little cultural integration. My hometown has a small population of Spanish speakers and a Chinese restaurant whose employees who do not seem to have a decent grasp of English. There are virtually no English language classes anywhere in the area. I called the local community college to see if I could assist in their ESL (English as a Second Language) courses. They told me they only offer one ESL class every year and no one ever signs up.
Only one high school in the area had a foreign student. That one student had moved from India with his family and only spoke Kashmiri. In the entire world, less than 6 million people speak this language, so it's not easy to find translators for this language. Especially in Southern Illinois.
When I went to the high school to offer my assistance (my FREE assistance, by the way), it was met with much excitement in the counseling office. They basically had no system in place to help this kid who was months away from having to take his ACT and could not speak a word of English. My daughter said he just sat in class and nodded when anyone spoke to him. There would be some legal hoops to jump through, but they were very excited that someone from this field was offering to help. One of them even said that my walking into the office was an answer to her prayers for this kid. Since I was already certified to substitute teach in the school and had been doing so for over a year, I didn't expect it would take very long. However, after a few months, I still couldn't get into the classroom.
Not again!
I finally gave up and talked to the district office for the elementary schools in the area. They showed the same exuberance as the high school. They had a few students who really needed help and were excited to have me available. They even contacted my college advisor to properly coordinate and be sure I would get my credits. However, they never actually made it happen either. Every time I checked in, they would tell me to come back later or explain that it was taking longer than expected. Once again, I had lost several months and was running out of time.
Not long ago, I was sitting in Red's apartment in Indianapolis when someone knocked on the door. He wanted to know if there were any Spanish speakers in the apartment. They were starting an English language course at the apartment complex and wanted to make sure anyone who might be able to benefit from it was aware.
Unbelievable! I had been unsuccessfully struggling to get into one of the extremely limited courses back home and in Indianapolis the opportunities just come knocking on the door. The only thing keeping me from getting my hours was where I lived. A few weeks earlier, my advisor had jokingly made a comment suggesting the same thing. I had just become convinced that she was right.
It took some effort to pull it off, but two weeks ago, I moved to Indianapolis. Two days later, I found a place to start teaching three blocks away from my apartment. It took almost no effort and there are teaching opportunities all over this city.
Plus, I now live in the same city as my girlfriend! No more 200 miles commutes every other weekend.
For those of you who have been following our story, I guess this is our next big step. We started out 900 miles apart. Almost two years ago, it dropped to two hundred miles. And now, she is a 10 minute drive from my apartment.
Life is pretty good right now. Now, I just need a job.
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